


That Moment Divine

by synonym4life



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: 1930s, 1940s, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Badass original female character, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Blow Jobs, Brooklyn, Confused af Bucky Barnes, Consensual Underage Sex, Dry Humping, F/M, First Time, Frottage, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Oral Sex, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, POV Bucky Barnes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Sharing a Bed, They are fifteen and horny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2019-10-28 02:43:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 61,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17779070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synonym4life/pseuds/synonym4life
Summary: “‘S okay. It don’t have to mean nothing,” Bucky said, trying to convince himself as much as Steve. “‘S just rutting. Just a bit of rutting.”His lips were so dry, his mouth too, and his throat, but the rest of his body felt like hot languid liquid was flowing through it. Steve swallowed, licked his lips. Maybe Steve’s mouth was dry too?One hot summer, when Bucky and Steve are fifteen, the line between their friendship and something new that Bucky can’t quite name blurs. It is only years later that the line disappears completely and Bucky can finally put a name to that something.





	1. You Made Me Love You

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning:** This fic depicts instances of sex (dry humping) between two minors. If that makes you uncomfortable, please don't read. Bucky and Steve are fifteen, horny, and discovering their attraction to each other. Only the first chapter focuses on them as teenagers, the following ones focus on them as adults.
> 
> The title comes from a song called All The Things You Are composed by Jerome Kern, with lyrics written by Oscar Hammerstein II. The song has been recorded many times by various artists. 
> 
> I've made a [**playlist**](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH6I_O9zBr5R8ilJ6XKvuTaEiD4bRZg5O) for this fic - there are songs featured in every chapter and this playlist has them all in the order in which they appear.
> 
> A giant heartfelt thanks to [TDcat](https://tdcatsblog.tumblr.com/) who is one of the most magnificent betas I ever had the honour to work with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Featured in this chapter are songs: [Minnie the Moocher by Cab Calloway](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB_fbBfP9yU) and [You Made Me Love You by Al Johnson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI5FAwhjrNE) (1st recording in 1913. This one ended up being quite a popular song and was re-recorded many times throughout the 20th century.)

It was so goddamn hot. Bucky loved summer, he really did, but he loved it when he was outside lounging in the shade and there was a breeze going, not when he was cooped up in their stifling overcrowded apartment. All he wanted to do was get out. He decided he was gonna go down to Steve’s, ask if he wanted to go to the park, maybe play an easy game of catch, because, yeah, maybe they were too old to play catch, but if Bucky hated something more than being cooped up in a humid apartment, it was being bored.

His mom and dad were in the kitchen, doing god knows what – Bucky hoped they weren’t groping at each other like he’d seen them do a week ago. He’d wanted to pour acid over his eyes. Without daring to look, Bucky shouted in the direction of the kitchen door to tell them he was going down to the Rogers’. His ma came into the doorway tutting, when he’d almost slipped out already.

“You’ve forgotten again, didn’t ya?” She shook her head, her lips one annoyed line. So, maybe Bucky was prone to forgetting stuff he didn’t care much about. Who could blame him.

“Forgotten what?” he asked, a bit petulant because he knew nothing good would come of it. At the very least he’d have to do chores. At the very worst he’d have to –

“You gotta watch over Becky and Annie.”

Bucky groaned. At the very worst he’d have to do _that_. He hated nannying.

“Don’t you go whining about it. They’re your sisters, and you should be happy to spend time with them.” Winnifred looked at him, stern. “Besides, I told you two days ago. Me and your dad are going to lunch with the Finkelsteins.”

It wasn’t that Bucky didn’t like to spend time with his sisters. He did, it was just that Annie was _five_. She needed so much attention. She kept begging him to lift her in the air and twirl her around. Bucky was happy to do that for about fifteen minutes, but after that it got real tiresome real quick. Not to mention pretty boring. Whenever he told Annie he was tired, she looked at him with big innocent brown eyes and said, “But I’m not tired at all!” Bucky explained it was because she wasn’t doing any work, and Annie looked at him patronizingly saying, “But I am! I’m having fun.” If Steve was in the vicinity, all he did was encourage her, telling her she was doing an important job, which meant that Bucky had to go for another fifteen minutes whether he wanted to or not.

“Fine,” Bucky gave in. “But can I take them out to the park? It’s so hot inside.”

“Sure thing.” Bucky’s ma smiled. “Do take Steve with you, too, though. He’ll help you keep an eye on Annie.”

It really was Annie who needed nannying the most. She only ever did what she wanted to, no matter what she was told. A handful, she was. Becky, on the other hand, didn’t really need much watching over anymore. She was ten and possibly smarter at her age than Bucky was, even though Bucky was five years older. Oftentimes, Bucky felt like she was actually the one watching over him.

Bucky went back into the apartment to get the girls, get Annie to put her shoes on – that took him ten minutes of convincing because she insisted on going barefoot – grab Annie’s plush bear and remind Becky to take her books with her. Arms full, they trod down to Steve’s and headed towards the park. Of course, Bucky forgot to ask Steve to take the ball with him, so they had to return, Becky rolling her eyes all the way back because she hated sports with a passion. When they finally had everything they needed, they took off down the street, Annie swinging between Bucky and Steve, and Becky chatting about the science facts she had learned from her newest book. This time it was something about the space.

After an hour of catch and what felt like an hour of twirling Annie around, Bucky, Steve, and Annie collapsed next to Becky, who was reading in the shadow of a large oak tree. She was smart enough to have taken a blanket with her, and they all squeezed onto it, Bucky flopping onto his back, Annie onto her stomach next to him, while Steve remained sitting at the far end. Becky continued reading, undisturbed. Annie started chatting about this and that until her head drooped onto Bucky’s arm and she fell asleep, exhausted. Steve had gotten out his sketchpad as soon as he sat down and was drawing intently. Bucky didn’t know what it was, but from the way he kept staring into the distance, it was either the boys running around at the edge of the park, or the landscape itself.

He was biting his lip, a slight crease between his eyebrows, as he kept glancing to the pad and up again. Steve didn’t know how expressive his face was when he was drawing. It was as if he were completely unaware of his body, emotion flowing on his face free and unrestrained. Sometimes it was frustration at a drawing not going as planned, sometimes it was a soft smile when he was drawing something (or someone) he loved, sometimes it was a raised eyebrow when he was working on a cheeky caricature.

An unexpected kick in his calf shook Bucky from his thoughts, making him flinch. Good thing Becky’d taken her shoes off or it would have actually hurt.

“You’re staring,” she said by way of explanation. “It’s embarrassing.”

Bucky threw her an ugly look, then flicked his eyes at Steve quickly. He was too focused to notice their exchange. Bucky wanted to ask Becky what was so embarrassing about it, but he didn’t want Steve to know he’d been staring and maybe a small part of him didn’t want to know what Becky had to say either. Her eyes were sharp as she continued looking at him, head cocked to the side.

“What?” Bucky hissed, feeling unsettled. He didn’t do anything wrong. What was a boy supposed to do when his best pal spent eighty percent of the time they spent together drawing. He couldn’t do much but watch. Really, what did Becks want him to do. Start drawing too? Start writing verses? He almost laughed out loud at the thought of himself trying to compose a sonnet.

“Nothin’,” Becky replied, but her brow was still furrowed when she turned back to her book.

Bucky humphed and avoided looking at Steve for the next hour, watching the leaves above tremble in the breeze instead. When Georgina from down the block came to the park with a bunch of other gals, Bucky made a point of waving her over and spent another good half hour resolutely staring at her face and occasionally her tits, to drive it home to Becky that there was other stuff he liked to stare at. If he glanced at Steve a few times anyway, it was because he found Georgina a bit plain and a lot boring.

After Annie woke up, it was past their usual lunchtime, so no one was surprised when her grumpiness made an appearance. They hurried home, and Bucky threw together a couple of sandwiches to appease her. She whined that even dad made better ones. George Barnes, though perfectly capable of cooking a three-course meal, was completely useless when it came to making sandwiches. In short, Bucky was glad when their parents returned and he and Steve could sneak up to the roof, clutching four cans of Hull’s Cream Ale stolen from the back of their fridge.

Bucky loved summer because of moments like this. No school, just a sequence of hot days blending together into one long burst of heat, only interrupted with a few refreshing storms. No school, just he and Steve lying around, either in the shade of a tree in the park, or the shade of the large chimney on the top of their roof. No school, just an occasional late night out, kissing girls behind a bush or in a badly lit alley, sneaking in a quick fondle here and there, if she allowed it. Summer was when life was good, when Steve was mostly healthy and warm and easy, his only worry drawing the Brooklyn streets right, doing justice to the Brooklyn sunset.

When they made it to the top, the roof was blissfully empty, the sun still beating too hard onto the red bricks for other people to brave it. They settled in their favorite spot, behind the chimney at the far end, which was big enough to create a giant shadow.

“Ahh,” Bucky sighed, content, one arm behind his head while the other lay the cold beer against his sweaty chest; he’d ditched the undershirt he wore at the park, favoring bare skin to minimize the stickiness. “Don’t you just love summer?”

“Not really.” Steve grimaced, looking down at his white undershirt – Steve never took it off, too self-conscious of his skinny frame – it had barely visible damp patches under his armpits and on his sternum. “Too damn hot.”

“Better ‘n winter.” Bucky shrugged, letting the reason he’d rather not think about that time of the year go unsaid. Steve had had a deadly bout of pneumonia in January. Bucky still shivered any time he remembered clutching at his clammy hand when Steve trashed in his bed feverish.

“Yeah,” Steve nods. “I’ll give you that. Better than winter.”

Steve flopped down to the ground too, but instead of lying down next to Bucky, he sat leaning against the red bricks of the chimney behind him. His pale legs stretched out, jostling Bucky when they hit his shoulder. Bucky breathed a fake ‘ouch’ out of habit, and Steve kicked him again because he was annoying like that. Steve had the bag with his drawing implements with him again. Pulling out the sketchpad and the pencils, he immediately set to drawing.

“Ugh,” Bucky sighed. “Do you have to draw all the time.”

“I need to get real good if I wanna to make it to art school, Bucky,” Steve replied with the answer he’d been giving Bucky all summer.

“What’re you working on this time?”

“Just some landscape. I’m trying something new with the colors. They say it’s important to have your own style. The more recognizable it is while still being likeable, the more chance you have in the professional world.”

Bucky fake yawned. “Boring. Why don’t you rather draw me some naked dames?”

Steve rolled his eyes but stayed quiet otherwise.

“You could draw a nice pair of tits. Even a cunt, with a talent like yours.” Bucky wasn’t giving up. After all he had nothing to do but annoy Steve.

“Can hardly do that.” Steve shook his head, reddening a bit. “Ain’t ever seen a cunt, did I?”

“Oh, come on. It’s not like you’re completely clueless. You told me you stuck it into Lisa in spring.”

Steve reddened even more, covering his face with his palm. “God, don’t remind me of that.”

“What?” Bucky laughed. “You liked it.”

“Oh, I liked it just fine. She didn’t.” Steve kept his face covered but peeked at Bucky through his fingers. “Shoulda never done it with an older girl. Told me a drop of water lasted longer before boiling than I did before coming.”

Bucky laughed harder, clutching at his stomach. It wasn’t that he liked Steve had failed so spectacularly, but it certainly didn’t hurt that Bucky got a laugh out of it.

“Ehh, you know my first time was terrible too,” he said in consolation. “‘Sides, it’s not like I’ve had that much more practice. It was only Mary twice and Gina once. And two times out of those I got so scared I’d knock them up, my dick stopped working. Now that was a catastrophe.”

Steve laughed along with him, forgetting his embarrassment. “I forgot about that.”

“Wish I could too,” Bucky lamented. “Wish they could. ‘M sure every gal in Brooklyn knows by now.”

“Ehh,” Steve waved a dismissive hand, “the girls of Brooklyn love you. As do their parents. A charmer, they say.”

Steve’s tone was teasing, but his eyes were fixed on Bucky’s face, a tinge of jealousy mixing with another emotion Bucky couldn’t quite place. His eyes swept down Bucky’s chest, down the faint trail of hair – Bucky’s newly acquired badge of passage from boyhood to manhood – stopped at the edge of Bucky’s shorts and then flicked back to the sketchpad. He wished Steve didn’t look at him like that — as if Bucky was the handsome one and Steve was the Hunchback of Notre Dame or whatever that man was in that old book Bucky had read a few months ago. Yeah, Bucky was more traditionally handsome, but Steve was handsome too, in his own way. Short and skinny though he was, he had beautiful piercing blue eyes and nice rosy lips.

Not to mention all the other things Steve was. Bucky would never be half the man Steve was becoming. Honest and honorable, loyal and dedicated, smart and persistent. If it weren’t for Steve, Bucky would be left fumbling through life, feeling around himself blindly as if the sun above the earth had been snuffed out. Steve made him find purpose inside himself, made him find determination to _be_ someone. Steve was the light that guided his way.

“Still think you could draw me a cunt,” Bucky insisted, mostly to interrupt his own train of thought.

Steve rolled his eyes again, snapping a pencil hard against Bucky’s shoulder. “Told you I ain’t ever seen a cunt. Was dark when me and Lisa did it. And I didn’t ever dare ask for more after that disaster.”

Bucky’s shoulders shook with silent mirth, and he settled back down, quiet for once, letting Steve draw. He kept watching him, though, now that Becca wasn’t there to tell him off. Steve’s hair was curling around his ears, wet from the drops of sweat that slid from his temple. The color in his cheeks was pronounced — Bucky liked that. Red cheeks meant he was healthy. As long as he wasn’t burning up with fever, of course. This time Steve must have felt Bucky looking as he shuffled awkwardly, flicking his eyes at Bucky’s face. Bucky moved his gaze from Steve’s face down to his shoes. The canvas of his sneakers was a bit torn in places, and the color had long faded from blue to gray. Steve was wearing red basketball shorts, his entire legs exposed, the light hair on his thighs sparse, but getting thicker around his calves. He looked every bit the Stevie from his childhood, only now sliding into adulthood. A bit more slowly than Bucky, but keeping up all the same.

After what felt like an hour, but couldn’t be more than a few minutes Bucky got bored again.

“Hey, folks – Steve –” he gave a respectful nod in Steve’s direction, “– here’s a story about Minnie the Moocher,” Bucky started to sing one of his favorite songs, trying to imitate Cab Calloway’s teasing tone. “She was a red-hot hoochie-coocher.”

Steve looked skyward, groaned, and threw his sketchpad to the ground. “Guess you won’t shut up, will ya?” he asked, scooting down so that he was lying next to Bucky. “Pain in the ass, you are. Want all the attention to yourself.”

Bucky merely propped himself up on his elbow extending the other arm dramatically and continued singing, “She was the roughest, toughest frail.”

“God, no wonder your Ma hates this song.” Steve shook his head, smiling.

“But Minnie –” Bucky paused, putting his palm on Steve’s chest, “– had a heart as big as a whale.”

Steve pushed Bucky’s hand off his chest, but it didn’t fall very far, landing on his hip. To Bucky’s delight Steve’s undershirt had got untucked when he’d lain down, so the pinch Bucky landed on the exposed skin was extremely effective. Steve yelped.

“Hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee ho,” Bucky shouted, turning expectantly towards Steve, waiting for him to echo the words.

“Not doin’ it!” Steve glared at him. Bucky pinched him again. This time Steve successfully slapped Bucky’s hand away.

Bucky gave a sad echo of ‘hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee ho’ himself before continuing with renowned vigor. “Ye-dee ye-dee ye-dee yeah!”

He poked Steve in the ribs. “The public is supposed to echo that!”

Steve only slapped his mouth shut tighter, his lips one straight line, trying to glare at Bucky, even though his shoulders were starting to shake from laughter.

“Wooooooaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!” Bucky screamed, his voice rising in pitch towards the end. When no answering ‘whoa’ came from Steve, Bucky pushed at him again. “You are a terrible audience.”

“Hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee ho,” Bucky tried again, but when Steve gave no response, he pinched his thigh, making him gasp. Steve pushed at Bucky hard and they started jostling each other, pushing and pulling playfully, rolling around on the hard floor, Bucky trying to pinch every sensitive bit of skin, and Steve retaliating by scratching his naked back with his nails.

Bucky ended up on top of Steve, covering his smaller body with his while Steve lay underneath, flushed and sweating, trying to catch his breath. After they calmed down, their bodies stilling, Bucky realized with a jolt that he was inexplicably, inexcusably hard. Embarrassment crept up on him, making him flush harder, making him want to scramble away, but he was pinned there by Steve’s clear eyes, darkening with realization.

Bucky gulped. There was no way he could get out of this, his cock was pressing much too firmly into Steve’s thigh for him to pretend nothing had happened down there. They’d done this a hundred times before, wrestling, roughhousing, and never, not once, did Bucky’s dick betray him. Until now. What was worse, Bucky wanted nothing more than to move, ride Steve’s thigh, relieve the pressure in his groin that was mounting with every second Steve’s wide eyes stared at him.

Bucky licked his lips, opened his mouth to say something, anything, to explain it away, apologize, when –“Oh.”

Steve, although not hard before, was stiffening against Bucky’s hip. He flushed hard below Bucky, moving his eyes away, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he gulped nervously. In a moment of wild spontaneity, Bucky threw all reason to the wind, and, breath catching in his chest, moved his hips. Steve took a sharp inhale, his eyes shooting back to Bucky’s in surprise. He opened his mouth, trying to get some words out, but Bucky pressed his body into him harder, making him gasp instead.

“Don’t –” Bucky ground out of his strained throat. “Don’t say anythin’.”

He shifted so that his hip pressed more firmly against Steve’s erection and Steve’s hips bucked up, one hand shooting up to grip Bucky’s biceps, the other staying where it was – on Bucky’s side – nails digging into his ribs.

“Bucky,” Steve protested. “Bucky, what the fuck?”

Bucky slowed down, his hips rolling gently instead of grinding down. Steve’s eyes were big, staring at him in wonder and shock. Bucky knew his own eyes reflected the same emotion. What the fuck, indeed.

“‘S okay. It don’t have to mean nothing,” he said, trying to convince himself as much as Steve. “‘S just rutting. Just a bit of rutting.”

His lips were so dry, his mouth too, and his throat, but the rest of his body felt like hot languid liquid was flowing through it. Steve swallowed, licked his lips. Maybe Steve’s mouth was dry too?

“Just rutting,” Steve’s voice was a whisper.

“Yeah.” Bucky nodded. It was stupid, it was so goddamn stupid and Bucky knew it, and yet he’d never cared less about being stupid. A surge of bravery flowed through him and he slid his palm up the inside of Steve’s thigh, pushing it open so that he could settle himself between Steve’s legs. The panicked look in Steve’s eyes was almost enough to make Bucky jump away, but when he was there, between Steve’s legs, and their hard-ons pushed together, cock against cock, and Steve’s hips bucked up involuntarily, all thoughts about stopping flew right out of Bucky’s hazy mind. When Bucky pushed his hips into Steve, Steve let out a soft, broken whine, meeting Bucky’s movement full on, trying to get more of that delicious friction.

“Just rutting,” Bucky said again, as he dropped his sweaty forehead onto Steve’s equally sweaty shoulder. “It don’t mean nothing if we don’t kiss, right?”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “Yeah, I suppose.”

Necking was for girls. Holding them close and gentle, when you pressed your lips against them, making them surge against you. That was for girls. So, Bucky supposed, it was alright if all he wanted to do with Steve was rub his cock off on him. It wasn’t even like they were touching in a weird way. It was just like humping a pillow, only that Steve was bonier and warmer. And more responsive.

The sounds from the street below faded as their movements became more erratic, more urgent. It wasn’t the same as jerking off. With his hand on his cock Bucky could come much quicker. This was a slow build-up, almost agonizing, the tension mounting, the pressure building until Steve was gasping against Bucky’s shoulder and then bit down unexpectedly hard when he came, shuddering. Bucky lifted his head, staring at Steve’s wet pink lips, feeling his chest move quick and uneven beneath him, and just like that, he followed, spilling in his pants on a muffled groan.

When he stopped shaking, he rolled off Steve, breathing heavy. He threw an arm over his eyes, unable to quite face the reality. When darkness fell over his eyelids, the image of Becky tilting her head before she said “Nothin’” and turned back to her book frowning, played in his head.

“Well,” came from the side, “this was fun.”

After a moment of complete, stilted silence, Bucky guffawed. His stomach clenched, and a loud uncontrollable laugh escaped him. It happened again and again, until he was laughing hysterically, holding his sides, nervous giggles bubbling in his chest along with loud ha!s. Steve looked at him with brows furrowed, obviously uncertain what caused this hysteria.

“God, I hope that wasn’t sarcasm,” Bucky finally got out when the laughter calmed down. He wasn’t sure why he’d erupted like that. There was something so ridiculous about calling what they did _fun_ that he couldn’t wrap his mind around it. It was messy and intense and hot and weird and _wrong_ , but fun?

Well, he supposed it was fun too.

“It wasn’t sarcasm.” Steve’s eyes were guarded. “It was...good.” He flushed a bit when Bucky didn’t say anything. “I mean, you know. In the way that getting off’s good. Getting rid of the tension. That kinda good. You know, it doesn’t mean anything but it can still be good.”

Bucky reached out and squeezed Steve’s bony forearm to shut him up. “Yeah.” He smiled. “Yeah, it was good.”

After a few beats of silence, his hand still on Steve’s arm, he sat up, pulling away. “Gross,” he said, looking down at his shorts. There was no outward evidence of their _fun_ , but there was definitely inward evidence. Bucky winced when the dried come pulled at his pubic hair as he shifted.

Steve laughed, then grimaced when the movement made him feel it too. “Ugh, yeah. Gross.”

Just like that, it all went back to normal. For all intents and purposes, Bucky almost forgot about it by the end of the week.

And then it happened again.

Another hot day, another hour of hiding from the sun, this time under the stands by an empty baseball field. Bucky had no idea how it started. They were bickering about something, which led to them pushing at each other, which led to them wrestling, which led to Steve on top of Bucky. There was a moment of hesitation, a brief one, before Steve ground down into him, half-hard already, a moment of mutual agreement passing between them.

It didn’t mean anything after all.

Steve took Bucky’s wrists and pinned them to the ground by his head. Bucky wanted to protest – and really, he could have flipped them both over in an instant – but the protest died in his throat because it felt – good. It felt good, being pinned down by Steve, his intent eyes on him as he pushed his thigh firmer between Bucky’s knees, making him arch for more friction. Apparently, Steve was bent on making Bucky come first, pressing down into him _just right_ , not seeking his own pleasure, but mercilessly reducing Bucky into a desperate, needy mess beneath him.

When Bucky arched one final time, trembling, all he could see before his eyes fell shut was Steve’s satisfied smirking face above him. Stupid punk. When Bucky recovered, it was to Steve still rolling his hips against him. Bucky winced. His cock felt rubbed raw.

“You gotta move. Too much.” He jerked his head downwards in explanation.

“Oh,” Steve said slightly short of breath. He let go of Bucky’s wrists. “Sorry.”

He started to scramble away when Bucky stopped him with a hand on Steve’s elbow. He waved his other hand at the tent on Steve’s crotch, cocking an eyebrow.

“Oh, we don’t need to.” Steve said, ears reddening. “‘S fine.”

“No, ’s not fine.” Bucky shook his head. He pulled Steve back in, pushed his thigh between Steve’s legs, and lay back down against the dry grass, angling his spent cock away from Steve’s hip. “Come on, Stevie. Rub it off.”

His voice came out husky instead of nonchalant as he’d intended, but Steve didn’t seem to notice. A small gasp escaped him when Bucky moved his leg slightly. Steve’s eyes fell closed. He was probably thinking of a lady, of plumper thighs, of a softer chest, of a nice flowery perfume rather than Bucky’s boyish smell. He looked good when he was gone like this, alive. Flushed and hot and alive.

Steve had been holding himself up on his extended arms, palms planted beside Bucky’s head, but as his movements became more determined, he fell forward into Bucky, his hair pressing into Bucky’s cheek, tickling his nose. It was soft and smelled of grass. Of grass and Steve. Bucky turned his nose into it, inhaling slowly. Maybe grass wasn’t much worse than flowers.

Steve moaned low, directly into his ear, sending shivers down Bucky’s spine.

“That’s right, Stevie,” he couldn’t help himself saying. His hands slid from Steve’s sides, onto his back. Steve’s crotch felt hot against Bucky’s skin. His shorts had ridden up, and their naked legs were completely entangled. For the first time, Bucky realized how acutely he could feel Steve’s leg hair rubbing against his inner thigh, how Steve’s hip was digging into his lower abdomen. Steve ground down harder, searching for blissful release. Without thinking, Bucky slid his hands lower, over Steve’s ass, squeezing, pulling him into himself. Steve jolted.

“Shh,” Bucky whispered. His throat was all scratchy. He pushed Steve’s ass down, helping him grind harder. “Don’t worry ‘bout it. Just come, Stevie, just come.”

It was almost as if those words were what pushed Steve over the brink. He moved his hips urgently once, then twice, then three times, and he was coming, his hurried breaths hot against Bucky’s neck.

“Fuck,” Steve whispered, spent.

Bucky tsked. “What would your Mama say about that language?”

“Think my Ma’d be more worried ‘bout some other things in this situation,” Steve gave a little laugh.

Bucky fell quiet. They agreed it didn’t mean anything. However, that hardly meant other people would think the same. He shuddered to think what his mother would say, god forbid his father.

He pushed Steve away. There was no reason for them to be this close now that they got what they needed. He couldn’t quite meet Steve’s eyes when he untangled their legs and scrambled into a sitting position. In a weird way, he felt like he was betraying Steve.

“Good thing she’ll never know,” Bucky said, and if his voice was a bit stiff, who could blame him? What a way to ruin the mood, bringing your parents into this kind of situation.

“Yeah, ‘course.” Steve looked uncomfortable when he said it. “‘Course, she’ll never know.”

“Yeah, well maybe don’t bring parents into this next time.” Bucky frowned. Steve looked at him as if he’d suffered a brain damage or something.

“You brought my Ma up, you jerk.”

Bucky opened his mouth to deny it then closed it. “Oh. I did.”

“You always this dumb after you crack your marbles?” Steve asked adjusting himself through his shorts. Bucky quickly looked away. Why was he feeling so weird all of a sudden?

“Dunno, do I? The dames usually have the grace to shut up for a while after.” Bucky knew he was talking shit and he knew Steve knew it. His efforts with the dames weren’t really an example of the standard, after all.

“Again, it was you who started talking.” Steve was looking at him funny. Bucky’s neck prickled from nervous energy.

“Guess your chattiness had to rub off on me sometime,” Bucky threw back.

“Hope you’re happy now that you got more than just my chattiness rubbin’ off on ya.” Steve’s eyes were cold when he glared at Bucky as if daring him to say more about it.

Bucky grit his teeth. Steve could be so fucking annoying. An annoying fucking punk, having to be right all the time, making Bucky feel like an idiot.

Steve huffed and got up, picking up the baseball and the bat they’d brought along and didn’t even use. He started walking away, back home, Bucky supposed, leaving him sitting on his ass, feeling all sorts of confused. When Steve had walked some distance, he glanced back.

“You coming, or what?” he asked, mouth still stiff, but his eyes much softer than they were moments before. He always looked like this when Bucky was being a jerk but Steve was halfway to forgiving him already.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky got up quickly, cleaning the grass and dust off his ass and legs. “Coming.”

The next few days passed by unremarkable in the summer haze. Bucky was on babysitting duty again. One day, they all went to the park again. One day, when a storm blessed them with its freshness, they stayed inside listening to the radio, Annie persuading Steve to jump around with her, lifting her up until he got too tired and Bucky had to take over. One day, Steve got into a fight with Grubby Callum that Bucky had to break up. One day, Bucky took the girls to the beach, Steve joining them in the afternoon, all smiles and sweat before he dove into the water, hissing when he came out, having forgotten about his split lip.

Everything was normal, and yet Bucky couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong between them after his...well, his weird outburst. It wasn’t that Steve acted differently; he acted exactly the same as he always did, which didn’t explain why Bucky felt more distant from him than ever. Bucky’s mood kept shifting between frustrated and apathetic. One moment he’d be on the verge of shouting at Steve, asking him what the fuck was wrong, the next he’d throw an arm over Steve’s shoulders and tell him how good he thought Barbara’s tits looked in the swimsuit.

The palpable distance he felt ate at him, a gap he wanted to fill but didn’t know how. One evening, when they were finally free of the girls, Steve suggested they go rummage around the abandoned houses in the west end of the city. It was something Steve loved to do and had transferred the excitement over to Bucky: listlessly wandering around abandoned buildings, finding items people owned but didn’t love enough not to leave behind turned out to be a rather exciting pastime. Sometimes they found junkies too, junkies and prostitutes and once or twice a gang they had to escape from. It was exhilarating, and it made them feel like they were adventurous explorers discovering what was left of the civilization. It didn’t matter that all they found were some broken records, an occasional good book, a rare photo album, and a lot of cracked pots.

That day they decided to search a third-floor apartment of a crumbling building. Most of the windows were broken, so they had to thread carefully over the crunching glass. Steve had found an old magazine and was leafing through it quietly. He stood by the back of a torn-up couch, the magazine propped onto the couch’s back, while Bucky poked around in a broken cupboard. Steve let out a snort, making Bucky glance at him. Must be some ladies’ magazine with stupid advice on how to keep her man. Bucky noticed Steve’s canvas sneakers were even dustier than usual, as were his shorts. They weren’t basketball shorts this time; they were longer, reaching down to his knees, a finer cut that surely Steve’s mother wouldn’t appreciate him wearing into a grimy old building. Steve flipped another page and snorted again.

With Steve’s snort echoing in the demolished room, and Bucky staring at him, not knowing what it was that was making Steve laugh, Bucky felt the gap that had grown between them more acutely than ever before. He felt like he was miles away, pelting backwards into a dark universe at the speed of light, away from Steve, away from the one object that made him maintain his center of gravity. He took a step closer, needing to be in Steve’s orbit again, yearning for the pull. On a whim, he marched towards him, _into_ him, and, without thinking, pressed his entire body against Steve’s.

Steve froze. Bucky forgot to breathe. He stood there, his chest against Steve’s back, his crotch against the top of his ass, knowing there was no way he could write this off as an accident. The first two times it had happened, he could pretend it was a spur of the moment thing, a random fit of uncentered lust. He couldn’t do that now. It was more purposeful. A conscious decision made and acted upon that he couldn’t take back.

“Buck?” Steve said, but it was faint. Uncertain.

Bucky could run. Turn away, apologize for his stupidity, make it right _somehow_. But he didn’t. He would regret it later, for years, because this would be the thing he’d end up thinking on the nights dread would set in. If he’d only turned away then, he’d be normal, he’d be safe. Instead, he slipped his hands onto Steve’s hips, leaned in, pressed his mouth into the hair on top of Steve’s head.

“Wanna do it?” he whispered, and moved his hips to leave no doubt about what he meant.

“I –” Bucky dug his fingers more firmly into the soft flesh beside Steve’s hip bone. “Yeah, yeah, okay.”

Steve nodded, almost hitting Bucky in the teeth with his skull.

“Gotta turn, though,” Steve said, squirming in Bucky’s hold, while he shifted around. The blue of his eyes shocked Bucky once he was staring at him.

“Yeah. Turn,” Bucky said, completely useless since Steve had already done it without Bucky’s commentary.

Steve’s hands twisted in Bucky’s thin shirt as he repositioned himself so that his crotch lay against the top of Bucky’s thigh. There was a moment of hesitation, as if they hadn’t done this twice already, a moment of uncertainty before Steve – and really, thank god Steve could keep his wits about him because Bucky sure couldn’t – started moving. It was an awkward angle for Bucky, he was just tall enough that he couldn’t get the right pressure from the position. Steve could though, and that was all that mattered. He gripped at Bucky’s shirt, knuckles hard against Bucky’s chest as he rode Bucky’s thigh, small gasps of pleasure tearing from his throat as he avoided Bucky’s searching eyes that seemed unable to move from the freckles on Steve’s nose.

Steve lost himself in the moment, his eyes falling shut, his long lashes lying against his cheeks, mouth opening in a silent O when he came, jerking in Bucky’s arms. Steve looked like a picture when he came, like a doll, all pretty and blushing.

When he recovered, the blush was on its way to covering his entire face, spreading down his chest. “Shit, sorry. Now you.”

He waved at Bucky, a small twitch of his hand, in the limited space between them.

“Can’t,” Bucky replied, finally turning his eyes away from Steve. “Can’t in this position.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Sorry.” Bucky didn’t know why he was apologizing.

“Just –” Steve made another twitching motion with his hand, “– just jack it off then?”

Bucky’s eyes flew back to Steve’s. Did he mean what Bucky thought he meant? Just jerk off against Steve? Jerk off like this? Pressed against him, Steve’s hands on him?

Bucky’s cock thought that was a fabulous idea from the way it twitched in his pants. Thinking was overrated, Bucky decided, nodding. He shifted enough to get his hand between them, pulled his t-shirt out of the waistband of his shorts and unceremoniously dipped his hand in. It took an embarrassingly short time for him to come. His balls were practically blue on his third tug. He moaned high and long, the sound so much more prominent when Steve was silent against him. Steve who was warm and soft and smelled like dust and summer and sunlight. Steve who, feeling brave, looked directly into Bucky’s eyes, licked his lips, and said, “Yeah, Buck.”

Steve whose lips Bucky wanted to kiss so much.

On that thought he came. Came in his pants for the third time, wrapped in Steve’s arms. It took them longer to disentangle this time. Longer perhaps because Bucky clung to Steve, his heart beating fast, not only as a result of his orgasm but as a result of his runaway thought. It didn’t mean anything if they weren’t necking. But what did it mean now that Bucky _wanted_ to?

Steve cleared his throat once they stood a few feet apart. Bucky wanted to reach for him again. He stubbornly clutched his arms closer to his body. There would be none of that.

“You gotta see what I found in this magazine.” Steve tried to make his voice sound light, but the blotchy flush still covering the top of his chest betrayed his unease.

“Uhh?” was all Bucky managed. So it wasn’t the advice column that had caused the snorts.

“The comics. They’re really funny. Terribly drawn, mind you, but funny.” Steve always criticized the drawings in the newspapers. Bucky kept telling him the point of that art wasn’t to be pretty or accurate, but to make people laugh. Steve always told him it could be done better anyway. Steve was a tough critic, but he was toughest on himself.

“You taking it home to redraw it?” Bucky asked, a smile tugging at his lips. He felt awkward, but this was common ground. Steve always did that. Tried to draw the pictures better, usually ending up admitting the first artist did a pretty decent job. High expectations were another of Steve’s problems.

“Might as well,” Steve replied. “It’s good practice. Maybe, I’ll end up doing this one day.”

“Drawing comic strips in newspapers?”

“Yeah, why not.” Steve shrugged.

“Nah.” Bucky shook his head, smiling. “You’re meant for galleries. Once we start making enough money and we get you into art school, buy you the best art supplies the world can offer, you’re gonna start making the kinda art people want to stare at all day.”

Bucky didn’t know shit about art, but he knew Steve had the potential to be the best. He’d always known Steve would go far in life, and if the art world was what he wanted to try his hand at, Bucky knew he’d go far in it. He never doubted Steve because Steve was the most stubborn bastard he’d ever met, and if Steve decided he would be an artist, he would be the best of them.

“Thanks,” Steve said, his returning smile small but hopeful.

“What I found is much more interesting,” Bucky told him heading back to the cupboard. He reached in and pulled out a small carton packaging with SHEIK written in black over the orange background. He threw it at Steve, who caught it against his chest.

“A condom packet,” Bucky waggled his eyebrows.

“Eww.” Steve dropped the small box. “Who knows who touched that, Buck.”

Bucky laughed. Steve grimaced. Bucky laughed some more.

When Bucky came home that night it was late already. His ma was dozing off on the couch, probably tired from putting the girls to sleep, and his dad was sitting in the kitchen, the table empty bar for a cup of tea and a book he was reading. When Bucky slipped in, George Barnes glanced up, frowning. Bucky probably looked like shit, all rumpled and dirty, but grinning. He greeted his dad, kicked off his shoes, and made his way to the kitchen, filling a glass of water at the tap in the sink. God, he was thirsty. He and Steve had wandered around that building for hours.

“Where you been, James?” His father gazed at Bucky over the rim of his reading glasses. They made him look stricter than he was.

“With Steve.” Bucky shrugged. His dad should have known, really. It wasn’t that hard to figure it out. “Just hanging about.”

His dad’s mouth twitched, making the moustache above his lip wiggle. Bucky resembled his father a lot. They had the same mouth, the same ice-blue eyes, the same dimple on their chins. Bucky would have been the spitting image of his father if he hadn’t inherited his dark hair and tan skin from his mother. His father, unlike all his children, had light brown hair and skin even fairer than Steve’s.

For a long time, George Barnes remained quiet. The sounds of the street echoed through the open window: the honk of a car, the yowling of a cat, the shouts of two men fighting. Softer sounds – the quiet notes of a song coming from the radio, the slightly louder and more uneven sound of his mother’s snoring – made their way from the living room.

“I don’t like it,” his dad finally said. He pushed the book farther onto the table and turned more firmly towards Bucky. “How much time you spend with the Rogers kid. I don’t like it.”

It was Bucky’s turn to frown. His dad liked Steve. As did his ma. They treated him almost like another son. A part of the family. What did Steve do to stop being Steve and become ‘that Rogers boy’ again?

“What’s wrong with Steve?” Bucky crossed his arms. His dad sighed.

“There’s nothing wrong with Steve. I don’t think so.” George took off his glasses, folded them gently, and placed them on the table next to the mug. He fingered the shredded corner of the page where he’d left off reading. “It’s just that all you ever do is hang out with him. You don’t have any other friends. All you ever do is spend time with your sisters and Steve.”

“Yeah?” Bucky failed to see the problem there.

Bucky’s dad continued fiddling with the page absently, while his eyes carefully watched Bucky’s face. “Boys your age should have more friends. You should have a group of pals who you’d play football with, who you’d drink beer with, who you’d chase girls with.”

“I chase girls.” Bucky replied, feeling the faint grip of dread settling in his lungs.

“I know you do. You’re good with girls. A bit too silly as I told you, but you’re good.” George was finding it hard to say what he’d intended to say, Bucky realized. And Bucky suspected he wouldn’t like what he was intending to say one bit. “And careful. Remember I told you you gotta be careful when you’re with a girl. You don’t want a kid just yet. Your mother and I can’t take care of a grandchild on top of Annie and Becky. ‘Sides, it’s only right that you put a ring on the girl if you knock her up. Remember that and choose well.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, impatient. “You told me that a hundred times. What’s that got to do with anything.”

“Chasing girls ain’t enough, James.” Bucky’s dad ran a tired hand over his face. The customers at the store must have been annoying today. “You gotta find a connection with one too, just lifting skirts ain’t gonna cut it. I’m not sayin’ you gotta think about settling down already. But you gotta know you will one day, you gotta plan for it. And attached as you are to Steve...I worry, James. I worry that you’re putting too much time, too much of yourself into Steve. But...what worries me more is that Steve ain’t even chasing girls, that Steve ain’t even looking.”

“Steve is looking for a dame.” Bucky knew he sounded indignant, offended on Steve’s behalf. “It’s not his fault no Jane sees what a great fella he really is. He wants a dame, it’s just that no dame wants him ‘cause he’s too thin and sickly.”

“Well,” his dad’s voice was heavy, but his eyes were even heavier when they bore into Bucky. Knowing. “Just make sure he doesn’t start looking in the wrong place.”

And there it was. The dread. Spreading cold through Bucky’s lungs. _Make sure he doesn’t start looking in the wrong place._ Except his dad got one crucial thing wrong. It wasn’t Steve who had started looking. It was Bucky. It was Bucky who started it all. It was Bucky who’d said it didn’t mean anything, Bucky who’d humped Steve’s leg like a horny dog, Bucky who’d looked at Steve’s lips and thought about kissing them.

The fear sprawling through his chest reached its peak and went on creeping over Bucky’s whole body. Slowly, the sounds of the outside world started coming back through the haze of panic. Bucky focused on them to ground himself, concentrated on the honking car, on the yowling cat, on the singing voice drifting through the living room door. _You made me love you, I didn't think you'd do it, I didn't think you'd do it. You made me want you, all the time you knew it, I guess you always knew it._

Bucky nodded, showing his dad he understood. Understood the danger, noted the warning — but with a plot twist his father never would’ve anticipated. The danger was Bucky.

It was Bucky who’d looked in the wrong place, and it was Bucky who had to stop looking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love comments! Comments are greater than the sun!
> 
> You can reblog [**this masterpost**](https://synonym-for-life.tumblr.com/post/186452579021/that-moment-divine-e-61k-completed-s-okay) if you like the fic and want to support your friendly neighborhood writer.


	2. I Don't Fit in Life's Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prepare to suffer. 
> 
> The title of the chapter as well as the lyrics Bucky sings at the end are from the song [Sittin' On a Rubbish Can](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VACxqEziG_g) by Julia Gerity. [**Entire playlist here.**](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH6I_O9zBr5R8ilJ6XKvuTaEiD4bRZg5O)

In the following years, Bucky turned his gaze elsewhere, and he couldn’t say he was opposed to what he found — Bucky loved dames and dames loved him. So he looked, but looked fleetingly, looked one way and then the other, never looked long enough for a connection to form between him and Sally or Mary or Helen. He never examined whether that was because a connection never would have formed or because he didn’t want it to. Ignorance was bliss, after all.

All of this looking, however, never quite managed to erase the memory of that one hot summer six years ago. There were days, weeks even, when he completely forgot that he’d ever wanted Steve, that he’d ever _looked at him wrong_. But then Steve would smile that wonderful dimpled smile, or whisper something sacrilegious into Bucky’s ear in Sunday mass that would make Bucky lose the battle with laughter, and that annoying itch would be back again.

“Didn’t think old Carey’s hat choice could get any more questionable but God’s proving me wrong again,” Steve would say, or, grumpily whisper something like, “This service is a fucking bore and I bet you Jesus himself would be disappointed,” when he was feeling extra twitchy about sitting down for an hour. Bucky always tried to push the bubbling laugh back down, mask it with a cough, but it never failed to rush out, often in the form of an embarrassing gurgle that turned all eyes on him. It was in those moments that he felt the itch the strongest. Itching to look and look and look, and to touch, and to hold.

Those moments felt like a slap across the face, brutally reminding him that something was still there, in his chest, some sort of quiet yearning assuaged only by the fact that he spent almost every day with Steve. Bucky’s dad wasn’t happy about it, so Bucky made a point to casually mention all the girls he liked to him. Bucky’s dad didn’t even mind Steve, he just minded Steve and Bucky, Bucky and Steve. Not much Bucky could do about it when he felt like he didn’t even exist out of those parameters.

Sometimes, Steve looked at Bucky as if he knew, his eyes intent, wondering. It always made Bucky grow uncomfortably hot under the collar, go all shifty and twitchy. “What?” he’d said, more than once. It always came out sharper than he’d intended. “What, I can’t even look at you anymore?” Steve always asked defiantly, but his cheeks reddened, and he avoided Bucky’s gaze. _Looking in the wrong place, looking in the wrong place, looking in the wrong place_ , echoed through Bucky’s head. He never said anything after that, only shook his head and changed the topic. He knew Steve wasn’t like that anyway. He didn’t have much luck with the dames, but Steve loved a good pair of tits like any normal man did. Bucky didn’t want to think about it too hard because he, too, liked tits just fine, liked how they felt nice and pliable in his hands, sometimes big and heavy, sometimes small and pert. He liked tits, no matter what they looked like, he liked them even if they were skinny and flat with small pink nipples and chest hair surround — when his thoughts went off on a tangent like this, he stopped them and yanked his mind out of the gutter.

On nights when getting his head out of the ditch was the hardest, he went dancing. Steve almost never joined him, and, to be frank, Bucky was glad. It was easier to concentrate on the dames when Steve wasn’t there looking sad and lonely and lost. He wanted Steve to be happy, to get himself a nice girl, have himself a nice comfortable life. Might be that Bucky was never getting that — he’d always felt, strangely, like he’d never get to live long enough — but the least he could do was make sure Steve got all that he deserved.

Bucky’s resolve started crumbling when he and Steve moved in together.

After Sarah Rogers died, Steve was a mess. Bucky wasn’t far behind him, but he hid it because he didn’t think Steve could handle his tears as well. Steve had loved his ma more than anyone in the world. She had stood beside him, dressed his wounds, encouraged him to lift his head up, and reminded him to never forget he had a fierce heart. She was like a second mother to Bucky, too. She was kind to him, even when he didn’t deserve it, and always treated him with respect and love. She’d taught Bucky about courage.

“Everyone has courage inside of themself,” she’d said, “it’s just a matter of finding it. And when you find it, clutch at it. Clutch at it more than you clutch at anything else in life because life and courage, they go hand in hand. You might not live a long life, but you’ll live a good life. You’ll live a good life as a good man, if you only hold onto courage.”

Bucky didn’t think he’d quite managed to do that yet, but he knew courage was there. He’d grasped at it with his fingertips, but he hadn’t quite reached it yet. He would one day, he knew he would, because Sarah Rogers had faith in him, and so did her son.

Steve, in Bucky’s humble opinion, had clutched at courage a bit too hard, and gotten into trouble for it too. A bloody lip a month and a split head per two was the standard. Bucky scolded him for it, fuming over Steve’s stupidity, gritting his teeth when he cleaned Steve’s scraped hands. Steve shrugged, looked a bit apologetic, and said, “Someone’s gotta do it, Buck. Someone’s gotta show them they won’t get away with it.” When Bucky felt exceptionally mean, he’d point out that someone always ended up being _Bucky_ because Steve could barely land a blow hard enough to hurt. That was when Steve scowled and kicked him in the shins or flicked his ear, mumbling something like “I’ll show you hurt.”

Bucky didn’t really mind though, not the way he should have. He minded because Steve was always getting hurt, but he never minded the fighting all that much. He’d never told Steve, but a certain pleasure uncurled inside of him whenever he landed a good punch. Bucky never provoked fights, but he never minded finishing them. And if it worried him, the way his mind went a little bit blank, when the thought of “at every cost” settled inside him, he didn’t dwell on it. It’s not like he looked for trouble.

Sometimes Steve scolded him. Sometimes, when Bucky landed a particularly nasty kick to the balls, because he didn’t fucking care about fighting etiquette, Steve said, “You didn’t have to fight dirty.” They’d often get into arguments themselves after that. Steve, the righteous fucking bastard, wouldn’t have made it past seventeen if Bucky hadn’t learned how to fight dirty along the way. Always so goddamn noble, when the only thing saving his golden-hearted ass was Bucky’s merciless fist. Steve was inclined to forget that over time bullies got bigger and also more dangerous. Good fucking thing Bucky had kept up.

So after Sarah Rogers died, Bucky moved into the apartment she and Steve had been renting. No matter how hard Bucky worked, though, there was no way for them to pay the rent and cover Steve’s art school expenses as well, even if Steve’s commissions usually paid half the rent. Steve had wanted to give up school long ago, but Bucky proved time and again that Steve wasn’t the only stubborn one in their relationship and absolutely refused to hear it. They moved out of their childhood building and rented a small apartment in an even seedier part of Brooklyn. The Great Depression was in its last throes, and the situation in New York was slowly improving — at least that was what the papers said. Bucky sure didn’t feel it. The mid-thirties were hard on his family, and they continued to be hard on them now the thirties were ending. His dad had lost the job at the store and had to take on occasional work whenever he could find it. Even Bucky’s ma had to work, cleaning for rich people down in Manhattan.

When he and Steve opened the door to their new apartment, Bucky thought that those dips at _The New York Times_ should come see this drafty dump before they wrote about the rising economy and drop in unemployment rates and other fodder like that. The apartment — more a room, in Bucky’s opinion — had one bed, a kitchen with a narrow table and two swaying chairs, one wardrobe, no couch, no bathroom, not even any hooks by the door to hang your coat on. Bucky would never have called himself spoiled, but he felt spoiled then, frowning at the mold on the ceiling. But then he looked at Steve who was smiling, his eyes bright, and Bucky resolved to buy a new set of blankets with his next pay. Fix the window too, so the draft wouldn’t be that strong. Thank god spring came early this year.

“‘S not that bad, is it,” Steve said, looking at the kitchen as if it had a goddamn bath in it, instead of a rusty sink. He was right though; compared to the other apartments they had checked out, this one was a goldmine. At least there were no rats in it.

“Guess so.” Bucky couldn’t help wrinkling his nose anyway. Steve laughed and punched his shoulder.

“Hey, at least, there’s no brothel next door.” Steve dropped the bag with his belongings — there weren’t many — into the corner and sat on the mattress.

The brothel. Bucky’d forgotten about that. If he had to sleep next to Steve, the least he could do was not have the sounds of people fucking echoing down the hallway all night. He bet it was gonna be enough of a problem being this close to Steve as it was. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like a terrible idea. He’d been avoiding thinking about it for so long that now he’d inevitably be forced to think about it, his brain wasn’t ready for it. They’d slept together in the same bed as kids. Often even. But not after — not after that summer.

“Besides,” Steve said. “The mattress ain’t half bad. New one, remember. The landlord said so.”

“Thank god.” Bucky plopped down on the bed next to Steve and gave the mattress a bounce. “If I have to listen to the creaking of your back all night, at least the bed will be quiet.”

Steve punched him again and lay back, spreading his arms on the tacky covers. He looked kind of ridiculous with his hair a halo of wild blond wisps on the dirty-white fabric that had ugly red flowers embroidered onto it. Bucky definitely needed to buy new ones.

“I know it’s shitty, Buck,” Steve resumed, “but it feels nice to move away from the old building.”

Bucky knew what Steve meant. It was hard when everything Steve did, everything he looked at, reminded him of his mother. Bucky’s family tried to help as much as they could, but there was nothing they could do about the memories. And Mrs. Yankovich who wouldn’t stop pestering Steve about the details of his mother’s death.

“Yeah, it’s nice.” Bucky agreed. It was nice for him to move away from his family too. He loved them with all his heart, but sometimes a man wanted some freedom. “Our bachelor life can finally begin.”

Steve rolled his eyes, probably thinking that Bucky had been living that life pretty well already.

“I’m painting that wall, though, just so you know,” Steve pointed at the partial wall that separated the kitchen from the bedroom. “And I claim the left side of the bed.”

Bucky sighed dramatically, “Fine.” He was glad. The left side of the bed was farther from the window. He wasn’t gonna argue Steve on that.

 

<<>>

 

As he’d predicted, it all soon turned into a right mess. He was careful at first, keeping to his side of the bed, tucking his hands under his pillow so he wouldn’t accidentally get handsy during the night. It worked for about a week. He spent most of the nights sleeping fitfully, waking up when his muscles spasmed with inexplicable fear, staring at the ceiling long after Steve’s breaths evened out. When Steve woke up to him tossing around for the fifth time in a row, he sounded worried.

“Buck,” his sleepy voice cut through the darkness. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine, Steve, go back to sleep,” Bucky told him like every night before. Steve shifted closer, the mattress dipping. Bucky couldn’t really see him with the curtains on the window drawn tightly shut, but he could tell by the silhouette that Steve was looking at him.

“Have you been having nightmares?” Steve’s tentative hand felt around in the space between them, settling on Bucky’s elbow.

Because Bucky was an idiot, he pulled his hand from under the pillow, and gently swept a strand of hair out of Steve’s eyes. Steve shuddered. “No, it’s fine. Just getting used to the new bed and all.”

Steve’s eyes fell shut again. “Mm‘kay. Just don’t fall off the bed.”

Bucky chuckled, moving his hand away from Steve’s face, laying it on the pillow between their faces. “I’ll try.”

When he woke up the next morning, their legs were entangled. It was as if his body insisted on being closer to Steve than his mind would allow. As if a person who was once pulled into Steve’s orbit, never got out, only kept hurling forward into him, to be swallowed up, like Earth that would end up swallowed by the sun. At least that was what Becky said would happen. She’d read it in a book somewhere.

A few days later, Bucky woke up at four in the morning with his arm thrown over Steve’s stomach. He groaned into the pillow, dragged his arm back, and turned around, determined. He woke up to Steve breathing into his neck. He lay in complete stillness, letting the warm puffs of breath send shivers down his spine. His stupid goddamn cock immediately took notice. He got himself out of the bed and marched into the communal showers where he let ice-cold water run over him for a full ten minutes like some sick masochist.

Even the dread of a cold shower didn’t stop Bucky’s dick from getting hard the next day. It was still dark outside, when the honking of a car pulled him out from the deep sleep he’d been enjoying and he roused with his arm around Steve, his chest curled around Steve’s back, and his cock pressing into the cleft of Steve’s ass. Bucky froze, not even daring to breathe. Slowly, he started untangling his arm, pushing his hips back, away from the lovely warmth and pressure in front, when he felt just how still Steve’s body was.

“You can, you know,” Steve said after a few beats of absolute stillness passed between them. Bucky didn’t say anything, hoping he could play the ‘still asleep’ card, before Steve, the stubborn bastard, pushed his ass back, right into Bucky’s crotch, burying his head into the pillow as he did it. In the faint light of dawn, Bucky saw, from up close, how his ears gradually got pinker and pinker.

“Steve” was all that came out his mouth.

“‘S just rutting, right? It don’t have to mean nothin’.” Steve’s voice was muffled, but there was no shyness in the way he rolled his ass against Bucky’s cock again. So Steve remembered too. Might have even intentionally thought about it from time to time. Did Steve think about their bodies pressed together in the humid summer heat when he touched himself?

Fucking hell. Jesus fucking goddamn Christ. How could Bucky say no to that when his heart was hammering like crazy and his chest felt like Steve’s probably did right before he was about to start wheezing. Bucky’s hand on Steve’s hip tightened. He buried his nose into Steve’s hair and let his hand slip back around to rest on Steve’s stomach as he gave his hips a roll. So long. It’s been so fucking long.

Steve wiggled in his arms, turning around in Bucky’s arms. He buried his face in Bucky’s neck as he slipped his leg between Bucky’s thighs letting him know exactly how turned on he was. _Please_ , Bucky wanted to beg. What for, he didn’t know. _Please, Stevie, please, please, please_ , was all that went through his head when he clutched at Steve, moving his hips, rubbing into him.

Steve pulled back, the hand on Bucky’s waist digging in as he gasped. Their eyes met, and Bucky panicked. Steve’s eyes were so dark, pupils blown with desire as his eyes bore into Bucky’s, making him feel like he was staring right into his soul.

“Buck…” Steve’s hand slid up his back, so soft and warm. Soft and warm, just like his lips. Bucky bet his lips were soft and warm too.

He pushed Steve away. His hand was on Steve’s shoulder, holding him back as he scrambled away, untangling their legs.

“No.” He shook his head. They weren’t kids anymore. They had to share this bed every day. There were things you couldn’t come back from, and this was one of them. Bucky had to at least try; he had to try for both of them. Steve didn’t understand how dangerous this was. He didn’t understand that Bucky couldn’t keep the promise of nothing. He couldn’t keep it when they were kids, and he sure couldn’t keep it now.

He needed to get laid. He needed to at least get his fingers in a cunt to remind himself why he loved the dames. Had to get his hands on some tits and make the gal squeal even if all she let him to do was get in a quick fondle. Most of all, he needed to kiss a girl soon, or he was gonna do something stupid.

He didn’t look at Steve when he started pulling on his trousers, or his shirt, or his socks. He was gonna go down to the docks, get there early, and stare at the sea in some goddamn peace and quiet so he could think. Or maybe not think at all. Stare at the waves when the sun rose above the horizon and not think at all.

He did look at Steve right before he opened the creaky door, but Steve wasn’t looking back. He let the door shut softly behind him and hurried out into the cool air. If he had any luck, the wind would whip some sense into him.

After that day, Bucky started going out more. He started going dancing, alone, or with the fellas from the docks, or sometimes with Steve, when he could get him to come. Steve didn’t like dancing, and he liked the dates Bucky got for him even less. If Bucky was completely honest, he didn’t much like the girls he got for Steve himself after every single one of them managed to make Steve feel like shit. Bucky wished he could get it, not wanting Steve. Wished he could be like those dames who said, “He’s sweet n’ all, but he’s just...not very handsome, is he?” Wished he could say, “He’s a dear, but I just don’t feel it, ya know?”

So Bucky started going dancing without Steve more often than not, started coming home drunk, smelling of perfume and smoke and if he got real lucky — sex. It was on one of the nights that Steve refused to join him that Bucky fucked it all up.

He got drunk. He got way too goddamn drunk. So drunk that even after he’d fingered Sally and made her come in an alley that smelled of piss, even after he’d walked home and stumbled through the door, he was still stinking drunk. He tripped over Steve’s shoes by the doorway, hit his shoulder on the door, and knocked into the chair on his way to bed. His cussing woke Steve and he sat up, groggy eyed, as he turned on the lamp Bucky’d found at the flea market right after they’d moved in.

“Jesus fuck,” Steve grumbled. “At least try keeping it down.”

“Shh,” said Bucky and giggled. “Sorry, Steve. Didn’t mean t’ wake ya up.”

Bucky started undressing slowly, his coordination so off he could barely unbutton his shirt. Good thing Sally had done most of the work for him already. He let the shirt fall open, and tried pulling off his trousers, almost falling over when they got stuck because he’d forgotten to take off his shoes. He kicked them off, finally able to undress down to his underpants. Felt good. Freedom! Bucky hated those stupid trousers. Too fucking tight in the waist. When he went to pull the sleeves of his shirt off, fighting with the cuffs on the wrists, he noticed Steve looking. God, Stevie wasn’t subtle at all. His eyes were on Bucky’s chest, flicking from one nipple to the other before they traveled south.

“Like what you see, doll?” Bucky couldn’t help himself saying, alcohol buzzing in his head. He smirked when Steve flushed and averted his eyes.

“All I see’s a stumbling idiot,” Steve replied because he had some mouth on him. Had quite a mouth as far as Bucky was concerned.

“Yeah,” Bucky had finally got rid of the shirt, “but you like it.”

He licked his lips, climbing onto the bed, not from his side, but right over the footboard. He banged his knee on the wood hard, cussing. Steve laughed, but Bucky paid him no mind. He crawled over the bed, until he was right up in Steve’s face. Steve was fucking gorgeous. Those fucking eyes. Blue. But so much warmer than Bucky’s. So much kinder. Bucky couldn’t take his eyes off him.

“Do you, Stevie?” It sounded like a plea. “Do you like what you see?”

Steve didn’t say anything. Bucky turned his chin so that Steve was forced to look at him. “Do ya?”

“Yeah,” Steve’s voice was thick. “You know I do, Buck.”

The words were like the nicest song Bucky’d ever heard. Steve was so pretty in the low yellow light. Bucky wanted to look at him forever.

“You stink,” Steve said after a few beats of silence. He flopped back down onto his back. Bucky followed, awkwardly trying to get under the blankets. He turned onto his side and inched closer, slotting against Steve. Steve was staring at the ceiling. His nose was too big for his face. Bucky untangled his hand from the covers and poked him right in his big cucumber. He giggled when Steve glared at him.

“You got a big snout.”

“Yeah. Potato nose. ‘S what you tell me every second day.”

Bucky laughed. “I’m funny.”

“You’re stupid.” Steve was looking at him now. Bucky’s fingers were still on Steve’s face. Somewhere along the line they started tracing his cheek. Bucky dragged them down, scratching a bit with his nails until they met the corner of Steve’s mouth.

“You got a real sweet mouth, Stevie, you know that?” Bucky ran his thumb over Steve’s plump bottom lip. It was so pink. Same as the winter sky was sometimes when the clouds hung low above the horizon when the sun was setting. It was pink like that. Like the clouds. Soft pink — almost white around the edges — the color getting bolder the more you moved towards the inside of the mouth.

“Your fingers smell like cunt,” Steve spoke up, jostling Bucky’s thumb off his bottom lip onto his chin. Bucky wasn’t deterred. He ran his index finger over Steve’s top lip instead.

“That’s cause they were in one.” Bucky stared at Steve’s eyes, saw them dilate impossibly, felt Steve gulp against him. “Do you mind, Stevie? It ain’t the sweetest smell in the world, but it ain’t too bad either. Tastes quite good, baby, promise it tastes quite good. Bit salty. Bit tangy. Bit sexy, bit dangerous.”

Steve’s eyes were completely blown and then — fucking hell — then he did something Bucky would remember for the rest of his life. He darted out his tongue and licked, slow and easy, at Bucky’s finger. If Bucky weren’t so fucking drunk, his dick would have made a pool of precome in his pants right then and there.

“Fuck. Steve, fuck.” Bucky was so past coherence he felt one pace away from mute. He parted Steve’s lips with his fingers and pushed two inside — and — Jesus fuck — Steve just let him, Steve just fucking _let him_. Steve’s breath rushed out of his nose when Bucky traced his teeth, then the inside of his bottom lip. He pulled it all the way down, before he dove back in, past Steve’s teeth right into the wet, wet heat of his mouth. Steve bit down, hard, then sucked, licked at the teeth marks he left. Bucky was so goddamn sad he’d drunk too much. His dick lay limp in his pants. If he could, he would have come harder than he ever had in his life, just looking at Steve like this. Made a goddamn sight, he did.

Bucky pulled his fingers out of Steve’s mouth, dragged them across his lips again, his chin, his jaw, leaving a wet trail of saliva behind. “Jesus fuck. You make me go all fucking crazy. Lose my goddamn mind with you, I do.”

Bucky didn’t think Steve was listening to him. He was staring at Bucky’s lips.

“You got —” he started, bringing his hand to Bucky’s lips as well. “You got lipstick on you, you know.”

Bucky didn’t know, but it made sense. Sally had some pretty red lips when he first kissed her. They weren’t red for quite the same reason when he stopped kissing her though.

“Wanna get some of it on you too?” Bucky asked because he was too fucking gone to think. Too fucking gone to stop himself.

Steve pushed his thumb hard into the corner of Bucky’s mouth, slid it across his cheek, probably smearing the lipstick further. Then he slipped his hand to the nape of Bucky’s neck and pulled him closer, until they were mere inches apart, breathing against each other. Bucky’s breath smelled of cheap alcohol and cigarettes, while Steve’s smelled of mint and sweetness and sleep. Steve tugged on Bucky’s hair stronger, bringing them closer and closer, until finally their mouths slotted together.

The kiss was slow at first, tentative. Lips moving against lips, as if not daring to do more. But then Steve moaned, he moaned right into Bucky’s mouth and Bucky felt the sound on his fucking tongue, felt it in his fucking teeth. It was better than he’d ever thought it would feel. Steve fit so perfectly against him. He pushed his crotch into Steve’s hip, rubbing even if his dick was useless, wanting to be closer, never being close enough. Bucky’s fingers on Steve’s jaw flexed, gripped tighter when he deepened the kiss, slipping his tongue inside. It was his turn to moan — though maybe it was a whine — a whimper — of a desire fulfilled after years of wanting. Goddammit it’s been fucking _years_ since he’d first wanted to kiss Steve.

He broke the kiss, but only for an instant, only enough to whisper, “Such a sweet mouth, you got such a sweet mouth, baby. You’re so fucking sweet on me.”

And he dove back in, tipping Steve’s head, running his tongue against his upper teeth and then biting on his lower lip, making him groan. He let his hands wander. He slid them over Steve’s jaw, down his neck, over his Adam’s apple. Steve shivered. He thumbed at Steve’s collarbone, ran his hand palm flat over his chest, before pressing his finger against Steve’s nipple, dragging his nail over it. Steve whimpered.

“Shh, sweetheart,” Bucky mumbled into Steve’s cheek. “Imma make you feel good. Imma make you feel so good. Let me make you feel good.”

Steve could only nod because Bucky’s hand was already sliding down his stomach, to Steve’s underpants. He ran his hand over the shape of Steve’s cock, pressed into it, making Steve squirm his hips. Steve’s fingers were digging into Bucky’s back. Bucky mouthed along Steve’s jaw, to his ear where he licked his earlobe before biting down.

“Get your panties off,” he said right into Steve’s ear. “Bet they’re wet already.”

If Steve minded Bucky talking like that to him, he didn’t show it. He scrambled for his waistband, pulling the underwear down, faster than Bucky had ever seen him. God he wanted to make him feel good. He wanted to make him feel so good. Better ‘n anyone had ever made him feel. He took hold of Steve’s cock, his grip firm. He thought he might have done it right from the way Steve’s hips lifted off the bed as he pushed into his fist.

“Buck. Jesus fucking — fuck,” Steve positively groaned, when Bucky ran his thumb over the head of his cock.

“Shh, baby, ‘s okay.” Bucky licked the shell of Steve’s ear, dipping his tongue inside, and Steve positively trembled in his hands.

He took his hand off Steve’s dick, raised it up to spit in it. Except — what if — what if he — this was fucking crazy. Once you had a dick in your mouth there was no way you could say — absolutely no way you could — His brain tried making coherent thoughts, but Bucky was buzzing. He felt wild, absolutely gone, whether from alcohol or Steve or both, he didn’t know. So he scooted down, hands still sliding all over Steve, touching, so much to touch, so much to remember. Steve’s hand was in his hair when Bucky bent down and hissed his stomach. He kissed it again, then bit at it, laving at the mark he left with his tongue.

“Shit. Shit, fuck, Bucky, Buck, what — oh, oh my god, ohmygod,” was the only intelligible thing that left Steve’s mouth before words morphed into gasps when Bucky’s mouth descended on his cock. Bucky didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. He knew what he liked ladies to do to him, but he didn’t know how the fuck they did it. Steve didn’t seem to mind too much. Bucky alternated licking at the head and putting as much of the cock as he could into his mouth. It felt weird, and it stretched his jaw something awful when he tried taking it deep. When Steve’s hips thrust up right when Bucky went down, he choked so hard he had to pull off.

“Fuck, sorry,” Steve sounded half-delirious, as if he didn’t really know what he was saying. Bucky liked that. For once Steve looked the way Bucky felt inside. Reduced to a mess because of a pretty mouth. Bucky gulped his cock down again, bobbing on it, sucking on every upward move. It didn’t take long before Steve was pulling hard at his hair.

“Buck. Soon. Fuck.” Steve’s voice was low, heavy and strained. Bucky scooted back up, taking Steve’s cock in his hand because he wasn’t sure he could take jizz down his throat without suffocating, but also because he wanted to see Steve’s face from up close when he came. Like that first time when he came on the roof under the hot Brooklyn sun, like that second time under the baseball stands, like that third time in that crumpling old building, like the hundred times Bucky imagined him coming in his dreams.

Bucky pressed a kiss into the corner of Steve’s gasping mouth. He pumped his fist harder, Steve’s hips now freely thrusting into it like he wasn’t able to into Bucky’s mouth.

“That’s right, Stevie. God, you’re so fucking pretty. So, fucking pretty.” Bucky knew, in the back of his head, that he’d been babbling the entire evening, but he couldn’t help himself. Steve made his mouth run.

Steve moaned low in his throat, and his hips lifted up, stilling for a moment, before he fucked even harder into Bucky’s fist, and he was coming, spurts of white landing on his stomach, on his hip, all over Bucky’s hand.

Steve looked blissful when he came. His face scrunched up, his eyebrows drawn together and his mouth open. He wasn’t loud. The only real sign of his pleasure were his trashing hips and the way he threw his head back, exposing his pale neck. Bucky kissed his throat because he could, because there was no inhibition in his whole goddamn head right then. When Steve recovered, his eyes searched Bucky’s. He stared for a long time, before seeming to remember himself.

“Oh. What about you?” He waved in the vague direction of Bucky’s crotch.

“Too drunk,” Bucky replied. “Dick don’t work.”

Steve laughed. “Mr. Barnes, you got an awful lotta problems with the functioning down there.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Bucky slapped Steve on the shoulder, but his aim was off, and he hit his chest instead. His vision was hazy at the edges. Fuck. He was gonna have one hell of a headache tomorrow. “It only happened the first two times ‘cause I was scared. And now it’s the booze.”

“I don’t know, Mr. Barnes,” Steve continued. “Sure you don’t wanna have that checked? It would be such a pity after all.”

“You, Rogers,” Bucky stabbed a finger in Steve’s sternum, “are fucking annoying.”

Steve laughed again, and for the first time Bucky noticed he really did manage to get lipstick on Steve too. He leaned forward, bumping their noses together, and kissed Steve’s red mouth again, swallowing his laugh. It was a fleeting kiss. Bucky broke it because he feared he was gonna end up just kissing that mouth all night, unable to stop.

“You got lipstick on now too,” he told him because Steve couldn’t see himself. Couldn’t see how fucking hot he looked, mouth all red and tender.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Look like the prettiest dame in Brooklyn, you do.” Bucky ran his finger along Steve’s bottom lip again. It was addicting.

“I ain’t a dame, Bucky.” Steve’s eyes didn’t quite meet his when he said it.

Bucky flicked his gaze down Steve’s torso, down to the drops of sticky come on his stomach, to his spent cock nestled in the hair around it. Bucky dropped his hand from Steve’s mouth, traced his fingers down Steve’s chest, stopping by a drop of white. He pushed his index finger into it, smearing it.

“I know you ain’t,” he told Steve, moving to another drop, smearing that one too. It should have felt disgusting. It didn’t. So he did it again. He hooked his other hand behind Steve’s knee, pushing it up towards his chest. He continued dragging the hand on Steve’s stomach lower, brushing his knuckles over Steve’s cock. Steve squirmed, too sensitive. Bucky didn’t linger and continued past his balls, down south, where Steve was now so exposed, so open.

Bucky looked back at him then, saw Steve’s Adam’s apple bobbing furiously in his throat. Bucky licked his lips. He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. He was going crazy, madness thrumming through him, like electricity, crackling inside of him making him completely insane.

He slid his finger behind Steve’s balls, against his pucker, smearing the come on his finger around it. Steve inhaled sharply through his nose.

“Would you let me, Stevie?” Bucky caressed the edge of the rim, pressing on it lightly — not breaching — just massaging. “Would you let me do it?”

The way he was staring into Bucky’s eyes made Bucky simultaneously want to hide and want to stand in that spotlight forever. There was hunger there, in the blue of Steve’s irises. Desperation too. Steve swallowed. His voice sounded broken when he spoke. “Anything, Buck, I’d let you do anything.”

The knot in Bucky’s chest that he’d felt there for his whole life — or maybe just since that fateful summer — tightened.

“Don’t worry. I won’t.” He drew his hand back, away from Steve’s most intimate place and lay it on his thigh, sliding it up and down, soothing. “I won’t let you do it.”

Steve’s hand stilled Bucky’s, his grip tight. Steve dug his nails into Bucky’s wrist.“But what if I want it? What if I want it, goddammit.”

“Shh,” Bucky shook his head, pressing their foreheads together. “Don’t let them hear. Don’t ever let them hear.”

Bucky heard Steve protesting, but he was so tired all of a sudden, his head so heavy. He dropped it down onto the pillow, pushed his face into Steve’s neck and, wrapped in Steve’s smell and warmth, the world faded away into a blissful illusion of a dream.

 

<<>>

 

Bucky opened his eyes to sunlight shining right into his face and groaned, pulling the covers over his head. Steve had absolutely no respect for Bucky’s hangovers. God. Bucky will never see again. He had gone permanently blind. Not just his head, even his eyeballs were throbbing in their sockets. Fuck Steve and his love of the morning sun.

Where was he, anyway? Bucky felt around on the bed but found it empty. Even moving hurt. What day of the week was it? He hoped to god it was Sunday and he hadn’t missed work. Sitting up, he slowly pulled the covers off his face. He didn’t open his eyes quite yet. When he did, though, the events of the previous night slammed into him like a sack of bricks. Fuck. What the — oh, goddamn — oh, god-fucking-damn — what had he done? He shut his eyes, but nothing could stop the onslaught of hazy memories.

Kissing. He remembered kissing Steve. Everything else was blurry, but kissing Steve was burned into his mind. His lips, hesitant at first, quickly turning bold. His tongue — god, his tongue — meeting Bucky’s, sliding hot against his. His sweet fucking tongue and his sweet goddamn mouth.

Fuck.

What was Bucky gonna say? What was he gonna do? It went too far. It went too far and now it was out there like a festering wound ready to be poked at, all exposed and vulnerable.

He got up, his stomach roiling. He hoped he wouldn’t puke all over the bed. Steve would never forgive him. Bucky once puked into the sink, and Steve didn’t touch the fucking thing for a week, leaving all the dishes and the cooking to Bucky. He stumbled to the window, squinting all the way, and pulled the curtains closed. Ahh, yes, good, he could think a bit clearer. He pulled the first shirt he found out of the wardrobe, buttoning it haphazardly, not really caring that it ended up mismatched. Taking a deep breath, he took the few paces that separated him from the kitchen. Steve was sitting at the table behind the partition wall, his hands wrapped around a mug of black coffee. He looked up when Bucky made his appearance.

“Hi,” Bucky said because what was there to say, really.

“Hey,” Steve replied, a small nervous smile on his lips.

Bucky pulled out the other chair and folded into it, pressing his forehead onto the tabletop. Usually, Steve said something along the lines of, “Serves you right.” He didn’t say anything now. Silence stretched between them.

“What time’s it?” Bucky finally asked.

“‘Bout midday.” The ceramic cup dragged across the wood and Steve took another sip. Bucky groaned. Midday. That explained why Steve was all cleaned up and impeccably dressed.

“Do we have something to eat or do I have to go down to the shops?” Bucky hoped to fucking god Steve had gone already because he didn’t think he would survive the trip to Mr. Durham’s corner shop.

“I went already.”

“You’re the best, honest. I could kiss —”

Great. Fucking fabulous. Bucky wanted to lift his head up just so he could slam it back into the table. Maybe if he was lucky he’d bang it hard enough to faint. Instead, he closed his eyes waiting.

“Buck.” he could hear the frustration in Steve’s voice, “‘Bout last night, I —”

Bucky lifted his head up peering at Steve. What was Steve going to say? _That was fun_ , like he’d said all those years ago. Bucky would probably cough up a lung from laughter.

“It’s okay, alright? What we did.” Steve was staring down at his mug as if begging his coffee to confirm it.

It wasn’t okay. It was stupid on so many levels. Looking in the wrong fucking place, wanting the wrong damn thing.

“Do you like dames, Steve?” Bucky finally said after a long pause. “Do you like how they feel against you, how they smell, how they laugh?”

“Yeah — I — yeah, I suppose.” Steve fiddled with the rim of the mug.

“Do you like how their tits pull their shirts tight? Do you like how their dresses lift up when they twirl on the dance floor? How they seem to glow when they’re having fun?”

“Yeah, I do. I like it.” Steve sighed, leaning back in his chair. “But I like —”

“Then think about that. Think about the dames.” Bucky sounded halfway to begging. “Don’t — don’t think ‘bout me. We’ll get you a nice dame, a pretty one. Smart too. And this —” Bucky waves between them because there’s no naming _this_ , there’s not naming this without it all becoming too real. “— this can be something…”

What was he even saying. This could be something _fun_? This could be something we do when we need to break the tension. But what if Bucky felt the tension all the time? What if he wanted to touch Steve when he wasn’t horny too?

Steve was staring at him now, imploring.

“This can be something we do. Sometimes,” Bucky finished lamely. He knew full well he wouldn’t be able to say no to Steve ever again the moment their lips touched for the first time the night before.

“Something we do,” Steve repeated. “Sometimes.”

“Yeah?” It sounded so weak. So fucking stupid.

“Right.” Steve’s mouth was one pinched line. “Because it means nothing.”

Bucky stared at Steve, and Steve stared back in silent competition. Steve’s jaw was clenched tight. Bucky grit his teeth together and looked away first, letting Steve win. He always won anyway. Won by making his point in the most grating way possible.

That was how their _something_ and _sometimes_ started. Neither of them really knowing what they were doing, and neither of them acknowledging it. In retrospect, it might not have been the best idea, throwing their friendship into such wild, undefined waters, but Bucky never claimed to be smart about stuff like that.

Yet, the following months were the happiest Bucky had ever been. Life was good. Spring had firmly settled into summer, and the docks were bustling with work. Even Steve found himself a job beside the irregular commissions, so money was good. Steve helped Mrs. Green at her bookshop on Friday and on weekends. Bucky often teased Steve by asking him if he could even still read seeing how he hadn’t read a single book in the past three years.

“Knowledge is power, Steve,” Bucky had said, sifting through the shelves one a day. Steve glared at him over the counter and inquired whether Bucky wanted to know exactly how the power of a five-thousand-page Encyclopedia would feel against his head. Bucky laughed and threw a paperback at Steve from behind the shelf because old Marge wasn’t there that day and because Bucky’d read the book and it sucked. Mrs. Margaret Green liked Bucky, but she was awfully nosey and kept trying to convince Bucky to go on a date with her daughter Louise. Unfortunately for Mrs. Margaret Green, Bucky thought that her daughter was ugly as sin, which, although not the nicest thing to say, was sadly also true.

Life was good and — what frightened Bucky the most — decidedly normal. He stopped going out so much, only went dancing when his feet were itching to move, and only kissed a girl here and there. He kissed Steve a bit more, but not too much, keeping his promise of _sometimes_. They never did much more than what they’d already done. A bit of rutting, a hasty jerk-off here and there, and a rare suck-job when Bucky felt really rowdy. He never let Steve do it, though. Whenever Steve wanted to, Bucky would stop him. “I don’t like that sorta thing,” he’d say. Steve knew he was lying through his teeth, but, when pressed, Bucky only lied more. “Had a dame almost bite my treasure off,” Bucky would tell him again and again, “I’m traumatized.” Steve usually couldn’t help but laugh even though Bucky saw that he was becoming more and more frustrated about it, especially because Bucky refused to tell the real reason.

The real reason was — well, Bucky knew it was stupid, but — the real reason was that Bucky thought that maybe, just maybe, if he didn’t let Steve do anything to Bucky that Steve couldn’t do to himself, it would mean that Steve was still...normal somehow. Bucky knew _he_ wasn’t. Knew he’d fucked up for life, that even when he would marry a nice girl, have three loud and happy kids with her, maybe even a house somewhere in the suburbs, he would still go to sleep with the knowledge that he’d sucked a man’s dick. That he’d enjoyed it. That perhaps he even _missed_ it. Maybe it wasn’t such a terrible secret to hold onto, but Steve couldn’t hold onto a secret if his life depended on it, not if he loved you. If Steve loved you he would let you know about every single thought in his brain sooner or later, and Bucky didn’t want Steve’s future best girl to know that Bucky let him — that Bucky let him...ruin himself. Bucky might not have mentioned it, might not have even dared think of it, but he remembered all too well what Steve had said. _Anything. I’d let you do anything._

So they lived in a sort of truce, Steve pushing and Bucky avoiding the push. Steve didn’t push too hard, though. He looked happy. Every day, Bucky woke up surprised by how happy Steve was. His smiles came easy, bright and slow, the kind that made it impossible not to smile back. If sometimes Bucky worried just how easily words like “sweetheart” or “baby” slipped from his lips when he came home and saw Steve stirring a pot on the stove, he couldn’t worry for too long because Steve made sure to hit him hard with a ladle or a spoon and Bucky jumped away laughing. He pretended not to notice the happy curve of Steve’s smirk when that happened, but he made a point to let those words slip out a bit more often.

When they were both free of work they went down to their building entrance where Hans and Mario — they insisted on being called by their first names — played cards practically all day. They were old men, completely gray, both of them balding, but Bucky thought they were hilarious, mostly because they barely spoke English, and when their usual argument about cheating got heated, they both screamed at each other in their respective languages until Hans’s wife leaned out the window, cutting them off with a string of cuss words. Steve and Bucky ended up learning some German and Spanish along the way, and, when they felt especially silly, shouted _hijo de perra_ at each other, or loudly exclaiming _scheiße!_ when they dropped something accidentally.

Sometimes Steve and Bucky even went to the park, but since summer had firmly settled in, and Steve’s skin reddened like a lobster’s in the sun, Bucky made a point of going there early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the sun didn’t beat quite so heavily onto the streets of Brooklyn.

The best days were when he and Steve managed to snag a bench in the shade. When that happened, they were able to sit there for hours commenting on passersby. Steve had some strong opinions on people’s choice of dress which amused Bucky greatly because Steve was possibly the person with the least style Bucky had ever met.

“Who wears that kind of hat in the summer?” Steve complained one day while observing an obviously rich woman strolling next to her obviously rich husband. “It doesn’t even cover her face. Bet you all it does is make her head get all hot and sweaty. Why the fuck do people wear stuff that’s completely impractical?”

“Guess it’s about the style.” Bucky shrugged. He didn’t think it looked that awful. He wouldn’t have thought about the practicality of it if Steve hadn’t pointed it out. He was the vain one out of the two of them, after all. “It’s fashion. It’s like art, don’t you think? Art ain’t always practical.”

Steve gave him a quelling look. “It’s not art if it looks stupid.”

Bucky had his opinions on that, but he wasn’t about to get into an argument with Steve about it. He didn’t give a damn about art anyway. Well, art that wasn’t Steve’s.

“Just think about it,” Steve continued. “What’s the point of putting feathers into your hat? There is no point. It ain’t practical and it ain’t pretty. It’s just stupid.”

“Steve,” Bucky stopped him. “You own three shirts.”

“I’m poor, Buck,” Steve huffed.

“You own three of exactly the same shirt.” Bucky tipped his head back looking at the leaves above him.

“I do not.” Steve was apparently adamant on making a point here. “One of them’s got dark grey stripes. The other two’ve got brown.”

“Ahh, right.” Bucky nodded seriously. “Your fancy grey-striped shirt. I forgot about that one. The special occasions shirt. The one that takes everyone’s breath away when you wear it.”

“Oh, shut up.” Steve hit Bucky’s thigh with the back of his hand, laughing.

“Well, to be fair, ol’ Misty-Eyed Monica did look at you like you were the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen the last time you wore that shirt to mass. Looked all sad and weepy over the unrequited love she bears for you.”

“She’s got an eye condition, Buck,” Steve glared at him, but his eyes glowed with mirth. “And she’s ninety-five.”

“Basically your soulmate, pal.” Steve hit him harder this time. Bucky yelped before they both dissolved into laughter.

“Really,” Bucky said through gasps, “you’re awfully judgemental for someone who goes to _art school_. Do you and Englebert Burton ‘I-am-soon-to-be-a-Lord’ Edmonstone the Third gossip about the merit of ladies’ hats in class?”

“God,” Steve groaned. “Don’t remind me of him.”

Steve turned his eyes skyward, and touched his forehead with the back of his hand like a lady about to faint. “I —” he began with a terrible attempt at an English accent, “— cannot even begin to comprehend these utter rags you Americans call fashion.” He looked at Bucky with so much disdain that Bucky had to stop himself from squirming in his seat. Who would have thought Steve could be such a good actor?

“I was delighted, nay, relieved,” Steve sighed, “when my faathaaa —” Steve made the ‘a’ obnoxiously long, and Bucky started cracking up again, “— took me to Paris last week so my aesthetic sensibilities could finally get some rest.”

“That —” Bucky was clutching at his stomach “— was a terrible accent. But the acting...that was for Broadway.”

Steve laughed along with Bucky, a bit embarrassed by the praise. Steve didn’t often let himself relax like this. He didn’t particularly like being the center of attention, not like Bucky who preened when people looked at him. Bucky was that much happier when moments like this happened, knowing that Steve trusted him enough to let go.

On a languid Saturday when the insupportable summer heat was slowly dying out, and a more comfortable August warmth was setting in, Bucky found himself outside Green’s Bookshop once again. After he’d spent most of the day in their apartment dying of boredom, he decided he might as well come down to the shop and wait for Steve to finish. To his disappointment, waiting outside, sitting on the sidewalk was only slightly more entertaining than lying in bed. Bucky got up and knocked on the shop window.

“Steve!” he called, peering between the letters on the glass to see whether Steve had noticed he was there.

“I won’t be long!” Steve called back. Bucky only heard it thanks to the open door at the far right. He gave a long-suffering sigh.

“I’m bored!”

Steve laughed. Playing the bored card never worked with Steve.

“Entertain yourself!” came his reply.

Well, if Steve said so… Bucky smirked, though he doubted Steve could see it. He spread his arms in front of the window, putting on a sad expression and sang, “No one to walk with, no one to talk with, no one to call my man!”

“I didn’t mean entertain yourself _like that_!” Steve’s horrified yelp sounded from the store. Bucky grimaced further and continued.

“Heartsick and lonesome, all by my ownsome, sittin' on a rubbish can.” He plastered his hands to the window, pressing his face to the glass. “No one to tease me, no one to squeeze me, I don't fit in life's plan. Oh, hell! and so on, why must I go on sittin' on a rubbish can?”

“Hey, you chucklehead!” Mrs. Green ran out of her shop. “You think I’ll clean those windows after every idiot like you?”

Bucky jumped away from the window, giving her a sheepish smile. He hunched his shoulders and let his lips slide into a pout. “But Mrs. Green,” he said sadly and continued with the song, “he's and she's give me the breeze, I know what their glances mean: "Why don't you just hop right in and help keep the city clean?"”

Bucky took a few paces to the rubbish can on the sidewalk and jumped on it. Thankfully, the lid was on or he would have regretted his little show.

“No one to neck with, and raise some heck with, I'm just an also-ran. I'm getting static, up in my attic, sittin' on a rubbish can.” Bucky looked sadly up at the sky and spread his arms as if waiting for that someone to fall from the sky. “No one to ride with, to sit beside with, I'm in a swell sedan. Believe me, sisters, I'm getting blisters, sittin' on a rubbish can.”

By the time he was finished he’d got himself a nice little audience. Steve stood in the doorway alternating between rolling his eyes and grinning. The ladies, Carrie Mae and Lorna, if Bucky’d remembered correctly, had also come out of their hair saloon. Unfortunately, Mrs. Green’s daughter, Louise, appeared from the flat above their house, too — something Bucky hadn’t taken into account when he started making noise. Big mistake.

When Bucky spotted her, she must have taken it as an invitation, because she walked up to him, a confident smile on her face. Louise’s problem, beside the fact that she looked like a Halloween pumpkin, was also that she was way too bold.

“I’d neck with you, sweetheart.” She put her hand on Bucky’s thigh, making him jump off the trash can immediately. He quickly put some distance between them.

“Uhh, I’m good, really.” Bucky’s eyes flicked to Steve’s in a request for help, but Steve was busy trying to contain his laughter.

“Think Barnes ain’t really got a problem finding company,” Lorna shouted, smirking. “‘Far as I know he had his hand up every skirt on the block.”

Not every skirt, Bucky thought, offended, looking back at Louise.

“I never see you out dancing no more,” Louise wouldn’t let it drop. “Used to be that you’d be out every Friday night. Now I never see your pretty face no more.”

Bucky didn’t know what to say to that. So people had noticed. At least Louise had noticed, and she was one of the biggest gossips in their quarter.

“Is that so?” her mother piped in. These two were the nosiest women Bucky had ever seen.

“Ooooh, is it possible?!” Lorna joined. “You finally found yourself a girl, Barnes? Finally found a dame that made an honest man out of you?”

Bucky knew they were teasing, he knew he should have shrugged it off with a laugh, a sly smirk and a waggle of his eyebrows. He should have said something cocky like, “Moved to another block,” and winked. Instead, he was rooted to the spot, dread spreading through him, same as all those years ago when he’d stood in front of his father in the kitchen, his weighted gaze lying heavy on Bucky’s conscience.

“Bucky’s just been working a lot, is all,” Steve came to his rescue. “The docks have been busy this summer.”

“Never stopped him before,” Louise wasn’t fucking shutting up, and for the first time in his life Bucky wanted to punch a woman.

“Well, stopped me now, didn’t it?” He finally recovered and sniped at her, sharply. Too sharply. Her already narrow eyes narrowed further.

“Anyway,” Steve supplied, clapping Bucky on the shoulder in an attempt at normalcy that seemed so fake Bucky wanted to slap Steve’s hand away. “I could eat a whole cow, ‘s how starving I am. Let’s get home.”

Bucky didn’t need much prompting to follow. He waved at the women, putting on the most charming smile he could muster and called something along the lines of “Have a good day, ladies!” He hurried after Steve, who was waiting for him a few paces ahead. They walked home in silence, Steve glancing at Bucky all the way. With every twitchy look from Steve, Bucky got more annoyed.

“You okay?” Steve finally asked because he always had to know everything. Not knowing must cause him physical pain from how his face kept contorting when he couldn’t figure it out himself.

“Fine,” Bucky replied curtly. He didn’t know if he was exaggerating or not. People had noticed. They’d noticed something had changed about Bucky. Yeah, so fellas often stopped going out if they got a steady girl, but Bucky didn’t have one. He’d stopped going when he and Steve... when he and Steve started...whatever they’d started.

“Hey,” Steve said. His face was doing that complex dance between a frown and a grimace. He lay his hand on Bucky’s arm.

“Don’t,” Bucky snapped, shaking Steve’s hand off. Steve’s jaw tightened, but he kept quiet until they arrived to their apartment. As soon as the door clicked shut he turned round on Bucky.

“What the fuck is your problem?” His jaw was still clenched tightly. He’d probably been clenching it all the way back.

“They noticed didn’t they? And they don’t even live close, but they still noticed.”

“Aww, come on. You know how nosey Louise is.” Steve’s eyes softened a fraction and his voice got quieter. “They don’t know, Bucky, don’t worry.”

“Yeah, well, one of us’s gotta worry.” Bucky wasn’t in control of his voice cords anymore. They were making him sound all panicky. But that was just as well. Steve had never understood that while it was important who you were to yourself, it was also important who you were to others.

“Honestly, Buck, I think you’re making a big deal out of nothing. No one knows anything.”

But Steve didn’t understand, did he? This creeping dread that froze Bucky’s lungs and made him forget how to breathe. He pushed past Steve into the bedroom, knocking into his shoulder.

“What the fuck, Bucky? What’s your deal acting like a fucking jerk?” Steve was angry now. Bucky liked that, he could handle angry.

“What’s my deal? What’s my fucking deal? Do you even realize how...how...fucked up stupid this is?” He waved between them. “I don’t know ‘bout you, but I don’t wanna have people looking at me like I’m one of those nancy boys. You know how they look at them? Pure disgust.”

Steve didn’t say anything for some time, but Bucky noticed that he was shaking. “Must be nice not being used to people looking at you with disgust.” Quiet anger, Bucky recognized. Quiet seething anger. But pain too. Sadness. “People’ve looked like that at me my whole life. So, no, guess I don’t care how they look at me no more.”

“Oh, please.” Bucky clenched his fists by his body. “Don’t play the pity card.”

Steve barked out a hoarse laugh. “Such a fucking asshole,” he muttered under his breath. “What are you afraid of, Bucky? People not liking you? You already don’t like _them_. What’s it matter if not everyone gazes at you with hearts in their eyes?”

“My family, Steve.” All Bucky could see was his dad’s heavy gaze and his ma’s disappointed eyes. “They would, fuck.” Bucky couldn’t continue. How could he know what they’d do. But they sure wouldn’t — they sure wouldn’t love him anymore.

“They can’t tell you how to live your life.” Steve’s jaw was set stubbornly.

“Easy for you to say when your ma’s dead.” Fuck. Bucky knew he was hitting low. Steve looked stricken before his eyes shuttered, trying to hide the hurt. Bucky wanted to reach out, wanted to touch him, say he was sorry.

“Yeah, suppose it is, ain’t it?” Steve bit out. “Suppose it’s easy for me, my ma being dead and all.”

For the first time, and, lord, Bucky was so fucking stupid, but for the first time, he realized that, after Sarah Rogers’s death, he, Bucky, was the only one Steve had left. He had no family, father and mother dead, grandparents dead, no sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts or cousins. Not even any friends. Without Bucky, Steve was all alone in the world.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Why was Bucky still standing? He should be on his fucking knees begging for forgiveness, but there was something ugly inside of him that wanted to hurt Steve. Wanted him to know about the heaviness pressing onto Bucky, wanting him to know about the cold.

“Yeah, you did.”

“No. No, I didn’t.” He heaved a sigh, running a hand through his hair. He closed his eyes. He needed to think and he couldn’t do it with Steve right there. “You really wouldn’t care what people said?”

“I don’t know,” Steve didn’t sound so certain anymore. Maybe he was finally seeing some sense. “I — maybe. Maybe I’d care. But not enough. I wouldn’t care enough.”

And it made sense. It made sense, because Bucky was all Steve knew. Bucky was the only one Steve had. It made sense that he wouldn’t care, but not because he didn’t have anyone else’s love to lose, no, it was because Steve had convinced himself, somewhere in his head, that this was all he needed. That Bucky was all he needed. Steve had always been silly like that, saying he didn’t need many people around him as long as the few he had were good. But this wasn’t the same, this wasn’t the same at all. Bucky knew how much Steve had always wanted a family, how much he loved kids, how much he wanted to take care of people, how he wanted to take care of a dame, defend her honor, and all the jazz that came with it.

“But, Steve,” Bucky had to try and make him see, “this can’t work. Don’t you want a life, a family, love? This —” Bucky waved between them again because he still didn’t know what to call it, so he let it hang in the air, “— you don’t _love_ me. This ain’t _love_.”

Bucky didn’t see Steve’s reaction. He didn’t see it, because as soon as the words were out of his mouth a terrible, dreadful weight settled in the pit of his stomach. A horrifying prospect of what if?

He shoved it aside.

“Right.” Steve’s voice was hoarse, but his face was empty, as if every single emotion had slipped off it. “I don’t love you.”

“Not like that,” Bucky supplied.

“So, not nothing,” Steve’s voice sounded dead, “but not like that.”

Bucky nodded. Maybe it wasn’t nothing. But it wasn’t like that either. He could live with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked the chapter! I enjoyed writing it so much!
> 
> You can reblog [**this masterpost**](https://synonym-for-life.tumblr.com/post/186452579021/that-moment-divine-e-61k-completed-s-okay) if you like the fic and want to support your friendly neighborhood writer.


	3. If I Didn't Care

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry this chapter is so late! I had a bit of a writer's block plus life hasn't been overly kind to me recently, so it slowed things down.
> 
> Again, major thanks go to TDcat for betaing this fic and for Gracie137 for cheerleading and brainstorming. She is the best fandom friend anyone could wish for! 
> 
> The title of the chapter as well as the lyrics that appear toward the end of the fic (paragraphs in italics in the record shop scene) are from the song [If I Didn't Care](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC_VzbtRGr0) by The Ink Spots. [**Entire playlist here.**](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH6I_O9zBr5R8ilJ6XKvuTaEiD4bRZg5O)
> 
> Credit also goes to [this post](https://thingswithwings.dreamwidth.org/213805.html) which helped me immensely with the gay Brooklyn neighborhoods of the 1930s.

Ugly Louise, as much as Bucky hated to admit, had made him see how stupid he’d been. People had noticed, and Bucky had to make them forget.

He made a point to be seen about more, indulging Morty, Joe, and Frank, the fellas from the docks, going out with them on Friday nights. Joe often took them to Harlem; he seemed to know every single person in the neighborhood and he always knew where the best jazz music was playing. Bucky, like in the good old days, danced with pretty girls and the not-so pretty girls alike (but never Louise – he had _some_ self-respect). Whenever he noticed the clock moving towards midnight, he took the chosen dame to a dark corner, flushed and sweaty from swing, and kissed her, slow and insistent, telling her how gorgeous she was. He started going out to bars in their neighborhood and started flirting with Alice from their building, even though she always rolled her eyes and told him to find a gal who would fall for his blabbering.

He even set up a couple of double dates for him and Steve. Those turned out to be an especially bad idea, not because Steve wasn’t trying — well, most of the time he really wasn’t — but because once or twice Bucky’d found Steve a dame he actually got along with. Bucky knew he was being hypocritical. He knew he wasn’t being fair. He even admitted that he was being a jerk, which he didn’t admit often, but he couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t stop the hot anger mixed with fear curling inside of him whenever a girl made Steve laugh. He suspected it was jealousy. He didn’t admit that. Not even to himself.

Bucky had never gotten drunk on proper dates, but he got drunk then, thinking it would be easier to bear his conflicting feelings when the world wasn’t quite as focused, quite as sharp. Instead, alcohol intensified his nastiness tenfold, and he ended up telling every crude joke he remembered, until Steve was snapping at him, shooting daggers with his eyes. Once, when Bucky made a particularly nasty gesture involving his beer bottle and his hand, accompanying it with a rude innuendo that made both their dates grimace in disgust, Steve had straight up dragged him out of the bar and shouted at him for a full ten minutes in the back alley. Bucky kept quiet through all the _What the fuck is wrong with you_ ’s and _You’re the biggest jackass I’ve ever seen_ ’s. When Steve stormed away, Bucky stumbled after him, trailing him all the way home. He didn’t attempt a second double date after that.

Steve had gotten – there was no other word for it – wilder. He would push Bucky’s buttons, challenge him, be it with his mouth or his looks or his mere presence. He found a fight in every second alley he passed, sometimes only coming home with irritation spiking inside of him after a shouting match, sometimes with bruised ribs and a bloody nose.

The evening of September 1st — a day Bucky remembered distinctly because the news of war in Europe was making every newspaper headline — Steve came home with a tooth swaying in his mouth. Bucky lost it.

“Are you fucking serious? This ain’t even about justice and ‘doing what’s right’ and all that crap anymore. You goddamn idiot.” He wanted to punch Steve again just to drive the point home. “This ain’t about nothing but you being a selfish little punk.”

“Selfish?” Steve spat out, fresh blood gathering at the corner of his lip. “You’re one to talk about selfish, you fucking coward.”

Bucky inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. They weren’t getting into this now.

“Shut up and rinse your mouth.” Steve obeyed and went to wash his mouth in the kitchen sink. Bucky was so goddamn mad. At Steve, at himself, at the world. Mostly at himself.

“Now hold your tooth back in place and hope to fucking God it heals. We don’t have money for that kinda shit.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Steve mumbled around the fingers in his mouth where he was, as instructed, holding the tooth in its place.

Bucky knew that a knocked out tooth should always be put back into the hole as quickly as possible, but he didn’t know if it helped if you held it in place for a while. Generally the injuries inside the mouth healed fast, so he supposed it _would_ help if you fixed it in place, but even if it didn’t, at least it would shut Steve up for a while.

“That’s what they told us at the boxing gym I used to go to,” he told Steve because Steve didn’t have to know Bucky wasn’t really sure either.

“Bunch’ a empty-headed fists,” Steve mumbled, ‘fists’ sounding more like ‘fifts.’ Bucky gave him an unimpressed look.

“Just go lie down and shut up,” he told him, already running a washcloth under cold water for Steve to press against his swollen cheek. Steve did as he was told, which meant he was hurting pretty badly. Bucky kept walking from their bed to the kitchen, keeping the cloth as cold as he could, until Steve fell asleep. He didn’t wake him up in the morning, art school be damned.

The aspect of Steve’s newfound wildness that terrified and pleased Bucky in equal measure was the one he was met with one evening after a long windy day at the docks.

As soon as Bucky, exhausted and hungry, had closed the door, Steve, who’d been sitting on the kitchen chair, sprung up, his jaw set with determination when he stalked over to Bucky and, without even giving him the grace to get his coat off, slammed him back against the door. Before Bucky could take in a shocked breath, Steve dropped straight down to his knees.

Bucky realized that Steve had been waiting – had planned for this – and, fuck, Bucky should have known it was coming from the way Steve had been pushing at him, from the way he’d been looking at Bucky, calculating, observing. Biding his time. What a persistent punk.

“Steve, come on,” Bucky didn’t even know what he was going to say. Repeat his weak claim that he didn’t want Steve doing this to him when they both knew he was lying? Tell Steve about his warped logic that even Bucky could never truly believe? “It’s not queer if it’s just wanking, and I don’t want you to become a fairy ‘cause of me.”

As if that would be Bucky’s salvation once he found himself in front of the Pearly Gates. “I know you’ll send me down to dance with the devil in a few, Peter, but I’d like to have it known I never let Steve suck my dick. Saved a soul with that, Mr. Apostole. Any chance I could at least visit heaven from time to time? I’ll be awful lonely down there without Steve. Promise to keep my hands to myself in front of the Lord.” It was dumb and at least he could admit it to himself, but it didn’t stop him from keeping that one sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance he was right.

“I’m gonna suck your dick,” Steve told him with determination etched all over his face, though the visible gulp that followed defied the confidence of his next words. “And you’re gonna love it.”

“Big talk for someone who never had a dick in his mouth,” Bucky quipped. It wasn’t like Bucky was that great the first time either. He bet there were teeth involved when he’d sucked Steve off on that drunken night, but Steve never said anything, so Bucky liked to engage in a bit of ‘suspension of disbelief’ and imagined he’d performed a perfect first suck-job.

“Big talk for someone who never had my mouth on his dick,” Steve replied, flushing all over his neck, but his eyes stayed firm on Bucky’s.

Steve’s hands rose slowly and started unbuttoning Bucky’s coat. Bucky stilled his fingers. “Steve.”

“Tell me you don’t want it, tell me you really don’t want it and I’ll stop. But stop lying to me, Buck.” Steve’s hand was trembling beneath Bucky’s and the jut of his chin went from determined to desperate. “Please, just stop lying to me.”

Problem was Bucky couldn’t even tell lies from the truth anymore, his mind was so warped. A tunnel of twisted thoughts. There was no denying he wanted this, though. He didn’t think there was any reality where he wouldn’t want this. Where he wouldn’t want Steve.

“I –” His hand fell away. He closed his eyes for a moment. “I do. Want it. Want you –”

The words were much too loud in the quiet room. Steve took a shallow breath and continued working on Bucky’s coat. The atmosphere in their shabby apartment was thick, but fragile.

“Just don’t bite it off, eh?” Bucky said, trying to ease the tension. It worked. Steve laughed.

“Maybe just a nibble?” Steve’s eyebrow quirked in question and then, in his usual fashion, he threw all hesitation to the wind and leaned in, pressing his face right into Bucky’s crotch. Bucky inhaled sharply.

“I –” Bucky’s hand went to Steve’s shoulder, slid slowly along his collarbone, and settled on Steve’s neck. He chuckled belatedly. “Yeah, fine. I’ll give you a nibble.”

Steve smiled. He lowered his eyes, his lashes thick against his pale cheeks, and pressed his open mouth against Bucky’s trousers.

Bucky had imagined this a hundred times. Probably ever since he first looked at Steve _that way_. Yet, out of the hundreds of images his mind had painted for him, not one of them could compare to this. For one, the whole thing turned out to be a lot less perfect, a lot less smooth. Steve’s fingers fumbled with the buttons for so long Bucky thought he would come from the hand pressing into his dick alone.

“Sorry, I – I don’t really know what I’m doing” Steve said later when, inevitably, his teeth made Bucky hiss. “Is that okay?” he asked more than once. Every time Bucky needed a full four seconds to even process the question because Steve’s lips were so fucking full and his eyes were so dark that Bucky could only stare.

Bucky had gotten many better suck-jobs in his life, even perfect ones, but none of them could compare to this one. None of them could compare to Steve Rogers’s loud mouth on his cock, Steve Rogers’s scraped hand around it and his cutting tongue under it.

Bucky warned Steve before coming, but because Steve always had something to prove, to himself or to someone else, he didn’t pull off, no matter how hard Bucky’s hand twisted in his hair. Bucky shot right into his mouth.

When Steve coughed and spluttered, Bucky smirked. Served him right.

He didn’t feel quite as contemptuous when he looked down though. There was a drop of come in the corner of Steve’s lips.

“Jesus,” he breathed. Bucky reached up and brushed it away with his thumb. Steve’s whole face went red. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. When Bucky didn’t stop staring, Steve smirked half-embarrassed, half-pleased.

“Told you, you’d love it.”

Thing was, there’d never been the smallest bit of doubt about that.

 

<<>>

 

Bucky met Gina the first week of October. She was one of the new cooks at the diner close to the docks where Bucky and the other guys sometimes went for lunch.

Gina was...Gina was something else. She slapped Frank when he grabbed her around the waist and told Bucky to “Fuck off with the false praises” after telling her she was sweeter than any pancake they sold.

And she could dance. Boy, the girl could _dance_. When Bucky saw her in the dance hall a few days after she gave him the finger, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Luckily for him, he was the only one in the entire hall who could match her quick steps, her wild twirls and dips. He laughed the entire night, light and easy, happiness bubbling inside of him. Perhaps it felt slightly less like happiness and more like relief, because, for the first time in years, Bucky thought _this, this is my chance_.

Gina wasn’t particularly pretty, but she had a fierce kind of beauty, the unforgivable kind, the kind of beauty that didn’t care for other people’s opinions. She wasn’t smart like the people who went to college were smart, but she was life-smart. She had more common sense than anyone Bucky had ever met.

So instead of singing false praises into her ear while they danced, Bucky told her the truth — that she was the craziest person he’d ever seen on the dance floor. The smile she gave him was brilliant. “You haven’t even scratched at all the crazy I got,” she told him cheekily and started dancing even wilder than before. When their faces were dripping sweat, and Bucky’s shirt was clinging to his back, Gina kissed him, right there for everyone to see. “I like a man who can keep up with me,” she said and dragged him outside. They necked in an alley behind the bar but when her hand dropped to the top button of Bucky’s pants he stopped her.

“Go on a date with me. Tomorrow afternoon. Cinema.”

Gina’s eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t peg you as a fella who was all that interested in dating.”

Bucky laughed. “Yeah,” he shrugged, “and you were right. Guess I just like you. Always did like crazy.”

If his smile turned a bit sad in the corners, he only grinned wider. No wonder he’d fallen for Steve. Steve was the craziest punk to ever grace the earth.

“You know what, James-who-likes-to-be-called-Bucky?” Gina pursed her lips. “Fine. But I’m choosing the movie. I got no faith in men’s taste.”

“Can’t blame you for that.” Bucky shrugged, took her hand, and dragged her back inside for another round of swing.

That was how Bucky started seeing Gina. Soon after, he started fucking her too. He’d never been good at keeping his hands to himself, and it soon became clear Gina wasn’t good at it either. “I’m not some dame, Barnes. Never been a good girl and never wanted to be,” she said before tugging down his pants.

Gina had a filthy mouth that turned sweet right where Bucky wanted it and he made a point to show her exactly how much he appreciated that. Never let it be said that Bucky Barnes didn’t take care of a lady.

He didn’t tell Steve at first. Despite trying to get rid of the churn in his belly whenever he looked at him, he couldn’t stop himself from feeling like he was doing something...disloyal. But what he and Steve had wasn’t something that you could _live_. You could _do_ it. On the side. Behind closed doors and drawn curtains. But you couldn’t _live it_. Gina, on the other hand, Gina promised a life.

“I been fucking this girl, Gina,” Bucky told Steve one day when they were on their way to the baker’s.

“I know.” Steve pushed his hands in the pockets of his coat. It wasn’t quite cold enough for gloves yet, but the wind did sting against the skin.

“How’d you know?” Bucky peered at Steve. He didn’t seem too miffed, but he wasn’t meeting Bucky’s eyes either.

“Saw the condoms in the drawer. Figured you had to be getting some use out of them.” Steve shrugged, but it was half-hearted.

Bucky didn’t know what to say. His chest felt unreasonably tight, and he felt... ashamed, for a reason that he couldn’t quite place. He too shoved his hands into his pockets, not so much because of the wind but because he didn’t know what to do with them.

“You can fuck whoever you want,” Steve said after a few paces. “I’m not dumb. I understood perfectly.”

Steve took one of his hands out of his pockets to make a vague gesture, but Bucky didn’t know what he meant. When Steve noticed Bucky’s puzzled expression, his eyebrows knitted together. “You know, ‘Not nothing, but not like that.’ I get it. So don’t worry. I’m not gonna have a jealous fit because you’re fucking someone else.”

Bucky didn’t know what it said about him that he _wanted_ Steve to have a jealous fit, wanted Steve to yell at him, to punch him and call him a coward until Bucky broke down and admitted that every single word of it was true. They didn’t bring Gina up again, not even when Bucky came home smelling of her, not even when he grabbed his coat late in the evening and said he’d be out for the night, not even when he heard Steve hurl something at the wall when the door fell closed behind him. Like all those years ago in that crumbling building, Bucky felt himself pelting backwards. With every unsaid word, he was rushing backwards, away from Steve, away from the center of the universe. He wondered how far back you had to go, to fall off its edge completely.

It was perhaps that fear that made them touch each other more roughly. Their mouths turned more savage, more insistent, kissing with force, nibbles turning into bites that started leaving marks. Their hands were desperate too, grabbing and scratching. It was as if Bucky hopelessly tried to hold onto Steve, while Steve tried to scrub every remnant of Gina off Bucky’s skin.

One day, after Bucky came home from having spent the night at Gina’s, Steve pushed him onto the bed and got on top of him. They tore at each other’s clothes until they were naked and hard. Bucky was sure he was going to have to sew back a button by the way a muted _ping_ had sounded from the wall, but there was no time to think about that with his mouth on Steve’s neck.

There was nothing slow about it, nothing easy. Before Bucky could even kiss Steve properly, Steve reached for the bedside table. Bucky’s mouth slid from Steve’s neck to his collarbone when Steve’s body shifted. Bucky was about to protest when he realized Steve was getting the K-Y out of the drawer. Good idea. Dick chafing was always undesirable, no matter how horny one was.

Without a second’s warning Steve slicked them up, the cold jelly making them flinch. Finally, he kissed Bucky, his mouth covering his moans. He took Bucky’s wrists, one hand dry, another slippery, and pinned them above Bucky’s head, continuing to rock above him. It felt good sometimes, when Steve took control. Bucky could simply slip away, as if all the thoughts folded onto one another until only the simple ones were left on top. Pleasure and Steve and _more_ and _yes_ and _please_.

Steve’s mouth was on Bucky’s neck when he rolled his hips too far up and Bucky’s cock slipped under Steve to settle against his ass. Something between a moan and a groan came out of Bucky’s throat. Steve rocked back, his head coming up so that he could look at Bucky. God, he looked so goddamn beautiful.

“Fuck me,” Steve whispered. The request felt too clear in the muted afternoon light. The things said during the day always felt more real, more true, than the things said during the night. They made the dread stronger too. “I want– I want you to fuck me, Bucky.”

Steve stilled above him waiting. He’d never said it so clearly. Never said it period. Bucky knew. Bucky knew Steve wanted it all, Steve would never be satisfied with half anything. And god, Bucky wanted. He wanted to give him everything, all of it, everything Steve ever wanted and more, but he _couldn’t_. He couldn’t give Steve what he wanted, and Steve deserved it all.

“No.” Bucky turned his head away, unable to face Steve.

“You want to. I know you want to.” Steve sounded so fucking desperate Bucky wanted to scream. He didn’t say anything. Steve had asked him not to lie to him, so Bucky didn’t, but he’d never promised to tell the truth either, so he stayed silent. He thought it probably said it all.

“Look at me,” Steve bit out. Bucky did. Steve was angry. “I wanna know why. Why don’t you wan –” his voice broke. “You fuck he –”

Steve cut off, but Bucky heard it anyway. _You fuck her, why don’t you fuck me? Why don’t you want me?_ Because Steve always thought no one wanted him, he always thought he wasn’t good enough when the truth was that no one was good enough for him.

Bucky wanted to tell him, yell at him. _I don’t even fucking deserve to want you! Don’t you understand? I don’t deserve to have even a bit of you, and here you are willing to give me your all. All I can be is your ruin. A dirty apartment with broken windows, a creaking bed, mold on the ceiling, and secrets in every crack on the wall. All I can be is_ me, _but you deserve a home. All I can give you is_ me, _but you deserve a life._ Instead, he made his gaze turn firm and told him, “I said no. Now get on with it or get your hands off me.”

It came out harsher than Bucky had intended. Steve’s eyes flashed and he let go of Bucky’s wrists. Bucky was certain Steve would get off him, leave him on the bed naked and hard, regretting every word he said, but he didn’t. He only shifted back so that Bucky’s cock was pressing into his belly again. He didn’t start moving though. His eyes firm on Bucky’s, he reached for the bottle of the K-Y again and squirted some of it onto his hand.

Bucky thought he would reapply it to their dicks, but instead, Steve leaned onto the hand he’d planted beside Bucky’s head and, slowly and purposefully, as if daring Bucky to stop him, reached behind himself with the other one – _the slicked up one_.

“Wha –” Bucky gulped. “What are you doing?”

Steve didn’t say anything. Bucky was pinned into place by Steve’s vivid blue eyes. Entranced, he could do nothing but watch Steve’s stubborn mouth fall open slightly. Had he dipped his slippery fingers into his ass crack? Was he – god – was he caressing himself there?

“Steve?” Bucky’s voice came out an octave higher than usually. He didn’t even know when his hand had grabbed Steve’s hip but it flexed nervously against it.

“Gonna – ah –” Steve breathed. Bucky thought he would go mad not knowing exactly what Steve was doing. Did he just – did he just – was he circling his rim? Did he push his finger inside already? Maybe just a little bit. Past his first knuckle and out again? “Gonna –” Steve tried again, his eyes more mutinous than Bucky had ever seen. “Gonna fuck me myself since you don’t wanna.”

“Jesus fuck, Steve.” Bucky squeezed Steve’s hip tighter, trying to ground himself. “You really gonna do it out of sheer bullheadedness? You gonna shove fingers into your ass out of spite?”

“Mhm,” was all that left Steve’s mouth before he tensed above him, and Bucky knew, Bucky just fucking _knew_ he’d pushed a finger inside. How far’d it go? Was Steve tight from nervousness? God, had Steve – Jesus – had he done this to himself before?

“Jesus fucking Christ, you’re a stubborn asshole.” Bucky lifted his hand because he couldn’t stop himself, he simply couldn’t stop himself from cupping Steve’s face and running his thumb over his cheekbone. Steve’s skin was hot under his palm.

“Yeah, well.” Steve turned his face into Bucky’s hand, mouthed at his palm. He mumbled into it, “Always been an asshole.”

If Bucky’s balls weren’t blue from straining not to come on the spot, he would have found it funny. All of this talking about assholes while Steve had his fingers up his own. But he didn’t. He found it crazy and hot and compelling and all the other things Steve was. He slid the hand from Steve’s hip to his lower back and then lower, to the top of Steve’s crack where he bumped into Steve’s arm. Steve’s movements stopped.

“No,” Bucky croaked. “Don’t stop.”

Bucky laid his hand on Steve’s forearm. Steve started moving it again: small movements that made his tendons shift beneath Bucky’s clammy skin. In and out. Slowly, he slid his palm down Steve’s forearm, lower and lower, until he was covering Steve’s smaller hand with his.

“Fuck,” Steve gasped. “Bucky.”

Bucky squeezed Steve’s hand slightly, followed the movement. In and out. Bucky’d done it to girls already. Opened them up like this, fucked them nice and slow, showed them a different kind of pleasure. But this – fuck – this was Steve on top of him with his own fingers up his ass. Steve always made him lose his mind. Annoying stubborn bastard, always doing what he wanted, never listening to anyone, and still always being right somehow.

There were beads of sweat gathering on Steve’s forehead. Bucky wanted to lick them off but Steve was too far up. His other hand was still cupping Steve’s cheek. He brushed his knuckles over the sweat drops on Steve’s temple then pushed his fingers into Steve’s hair pulling him down. He didn’t kiss him immediately, wanting to feel Steve’s gasps on his lips.

“How many –? Just one finger or more?” Bucky asked, feeling ridiculous immediately after. What the fuck did it matter how many fingers Steve had up his ass, he had _his fingers up his ass, fucking_ himself, _enjoying_ it.

“Just one,” Steve whispered. He pulled back a little so that he could look at Bucky fully. There was a small smirk on his lips but it was almost completely swallowed up by the wild desire in his eyes. “Want me to put in another one?”

“Fuck, Steve, fuck you’re, Jesus, yes, yes,” words tumbled out of Bucky’s mouth. He pulled Steve down and kissed him sloppy. Steve had such a sweet mouth. Bucky wanted to call him _baby_ , he wanted to call him _doll_ , he wanted to tell him, no matter how cheesy it sounded, he wanted to say “That’s right baby, make yourself wet for me,” he wanted to see Steve open himself up, tell him how fucking crazy it made him, tell him how much he wanted him, how much he wanted to fuck him, but not only that, how much he _wanted him_ , all of him, everything. Bucky would take it all, take it, and never give it back. That frightened him more than anything else.

Steve broke the kiss when his body tensed again and Bucky realized that no, Steve hadn’t done this before, he was too hesitant, too careful. Bucky felt the hand beneath his shift, knew Steve was pushing another finger past the tight circle. He kissed the corner of Steve’s mouth, then his cheek, his temple, his ear.

“That’s right, Stevie,” he said when Steve moaned low in his throat. “Push back on them, that’s right. God, so good, baby, so fucking good.”

Now that Steve was fully lying on top of Bucky, their cocks were getting some friction again. Bucky rolled his hips, careful not to disturb Steve’s rhythm. Steve’s whole body was rocking now, alternating between seeking pleasure for his cock and pushing back on his fingers. His movements were becoming more and more frantic and Bucky followed them as best he could. Steve looked so undone, so free, His eyelids were shut, his mouth wet and open and his hair plastered to his forehead. Bucky wondered how it would feel if it were him undoing Steve like this. How it would feel to be wrapped up in him so completely, how it would feel to bury his cock into Steve’s ass, right to the hilt, making him throw his head back and moan. If it hurt, Bucky would ease him through it, wait for him to adjust, talk him through it by whispering sweet nothings into his ear, like he’d done so many times with the dames, except that with Steve, he would mean every single word he said.

With that thought Bucky’s body seized up, his hips thrusting in a stuttered motion, his grip on Steve’s neck undoubtedly becoming painful, when his whole body tensed and he came between them, on their bellies, eyes shut tightly, his moan half-swallowed by Steve’s lips. Bucky needed a long time to recover, but he opened his eyes in time to see Steve staring at him, eyes dark, as he bit his lip and came with a guttural groan deep in his throat. Bucky felt Steve’s cock twitch between them as Steve kept coming and coming, his fingers in his ass stilling.

Bucky petted his hair with one hand while trailing the other one over the spiky ridges of Steve’s spine until Steve collapsed onto him, his breath hot at the junction of Bucky’s neck and shoulder.

“Fuck,” Steve said into Bucky’s skin, breathing heavy.

Bucky continued tracing patterns on his back, delighting in the way Steve squirmed when he traced his fingertips over the sides of his ribs. Steve had always been ticklish. They stayed that way for a while, until Steve bit hard at Bucky’s neck making him yelp. Bucky shoved him off, laughing. Steve fell sideways in an inelegant heap of limbs. He kicked at Bucky in retaliation.

“You’re an annoying punk, you know that?” Bucky laughed, throwing his arm over his eyes.

“Hard to forget when you tell me, I don’t know, about a hundred and thirty-five times a day.”

“Not enough,” Bucky grumbled. “Should make it at least two hundred.”

They lay in silence for a while until Steve wrangled the covers from under them and threw them over their bodies. The chill in the room was making itself known on their damp skin. Bucky stopped covering his eyes with his arm. He let it fall onto the pillow when he turned to look at Steve. Steve’s eyes were closed but Bucky could tell he wasn’t sleeping.

“How’s it feel?” Bucky asked. Steve’s lashes fluttered open, his eyebrows knitting together.

“How’s what feel?”

“You know.” Bucky looked at the ceiling. There was a patch of mold on the plaster that looked like a duck. Well, Steve argued him on every occasion he could that the shape sooner resembled a cow than a duck, but Bucky insisted that his eyesight was too bad to weigh in on the matter. “How’s it feel having fingers up your ass?”

Steve’s eyebrows furrowed further and his mouth acquired an annoyed twist. He huffed. “You got an ass and fingers just as me. Figure it out yourself.”

So Steve was still bitter about Bucky refusing him. That was just as well. Bucky shrugged and changed the topic.

The next day, when Gina was sucking him off, he asked her to put a finger _in there_. She obviously knew what she was doing because she barely even blinked at his request. She pressed into him, found a sweet, sweet fucking spot that Bucky didn’t even know existed, and sucked him off while slowly massaging him on the inside, until a coil of tension in Bucky’s groin that he’d never felt before released, and he came more loudly and more uncontrollably than ever before.

He needed a full five minutes to recover with Gina laughing beside him all the while, making Bucky flush in embarrassment by how quickly and how easily she’d made him come.

“Stop it,” he said after she exploded into laughter again when he finally sat up and the movement came out completely uncoordinated. “Fine. I’ll never ask again. I just wanted to know, okay.”

“Oh, you’ll ask again soon enough.” Gina smirked. “Made you shoot like a fucking fountain. You ain’t saying no to that any time soon.”

“Yeah, well, whatever.” Bucky knew he was being sulky for no reason but he felt uncomfortable under Gina’s piercing gaze.

“It’s okay, you know. I don’t mind. ‘S not the first time I did that to a fella.” She carded her fingers through Bucky’s hair, her nails massaging his skull. “My cousin told me it felt good for guys too. Said it was a different kinda good than it was for girls. Guess he’d know, he’s a queer. Anyway, I decided to try it on some fellas. Turned out my cousin was right.”

Bucky tensed involuntarily. “I’m not queer.”

“Didn’t say you were.” Gina’s fingers in his hair stilled.

“Well, keep it that way ‘cause I ain’t no fairy.” There was a familiar prickle of fear in his stomach. One would think he’d have gotten used to it by now.

“I think it’s pretty obvious you ain’t one.” Gina pursed her lips, looking at him sideways, while gesturing at herself. Gina was extremely observant – it was something that Bucky admired at her a lot – but this was the time he needed her to be observant the least.

“Anyway,” she resumed stroking Bucky’s hair, “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being one. Like I said, my cousin, Marco, is queer and he’s a great fella. He’s my best friend, always has been. When he told me he was queer one day, it didn’t change him at all, did it? Was just like he’d always been. Loud and stupid and weird as all hell.”

Bucky turned to look at her fully. There was no trace of a lie on her face. No lie, no joke. She meant it. Meant every word of it. Bucky’d never met anyone who was this...this...well this certain in their wrongness. “It just ain’t right, is it.”

“Oh, yeah?” Gina’s eyes narrowed. “Why’s that?”

“It just ain’t natural.” Bucky felt like a fly on the wall about to be smashed into a pulp by a newspaper with the way Gina was looking at him. Jesus, he really found himself a girl just as ready for a fight as Steve.

“Fucking girls in the butt ain’t natural either and an awful lotta men like to do it.” She propped herself on her elbow, her hand leaving Bucky’s hair. He missed it instantly. He liked when she did that. It was comforting.

“That’s different though.” He looked at the desk in the corner, unable to meet her eyes.

“Didn’t say it wasn’t different. Only said it wasn’t natural. People like to throw that word around when it suits them. Natural. No one ever talks about how unnatural cars are, or, I don’t know, bombs. Or flushable crappers. Or fucking buttons.”

“Yeah, well,” Bucky wanted to quit this topic as fast as possible. “Still ain’t right.”

“Yeah, well,” Gina echoed his words. “Still didn’t tell me why.”

“It just ain’t, okay?” Frustration rose inside Bucky, as if the dread he felt whenever he thought about this had been replaced by anger, anger at himself, anger at Gina, anger at the whole goddamn world. “It ain’t how it’s supposed to be. Not how God intended, if you wanna bring him into it.”

Bucky didn’t know why he was bringing him into this himself. It wasn’t like he was some fierce believer.

“God didn’t want Eve to take that apple, but he still let the devil into the paradise. So I say it’s his own damn fault things ain’t how they’re supposed to be.” Gina sat up, rummaging around for her shirt. She put it on. Her nipples were visible through the white fabric. She was beautiful. No make-up, no special hairdo, only her bare face and her tousled black hair.

“Besmirching the name of our Lord,” Bucky tsked.

“Big words for a Brooklyn boy. You learned that one in a book? Didn’t know you could read, Barnes.” Gina teased, flicking his ear.

“I’ll have you know I’m a big fan of the classics,” Bucky told her with his best “I am an educated young man” look. He wasn’t one, and he didn’t look it, but it made her laugh so he counted it as a success. He wrapped his arm around her waist pulling her back down, to lie on his chest.

Gina was quiet for a moment, before saying, “Things ain’t ever how they’re supposed to be, Bucky. Life’s a mess. ‘S just how it is. If things were how they were supposed to be I wouldn’t be out here fucking you without a ring on my finger – a ring you should have put on. Yet here I am, a gilly, having fucked a fair share of Brooklyn without regretting a thing.”

“Hey,” Bucky squeezed her arm, “you ain’t no gilly.”

“See, you won’t call me that, but others will. People who are set in the ways life’s _supposed_ to be. I tried being what they wanted me to be. A good girl, smart, hard working, quiet, always quiet. Problem is everyone tells you how you’re supposed to be, but none of them really know, do they? Well, I think that what I’m supposed to be is happy. And I’m only happy when I’m me.”

“Yeah,” was all Bucky got out after a few beats of silence. His throat was completely dry and his hand on Gina’s upper arm too tight. He loosened his grip.

_I’m only happy when I’m me._

Bucky didn’t even know who he was, what he was. Life was messy, Gina was right. But was she right about the other stuff too? If she was, why then did Bucky feel his chest constrict whenever he thought about people _knowing_. Why did he feel dirty whenever he walked down the street, why did he feel disgusting when he sat down behind his mother’s table, showered by her love from every side, wishing it would swallow him whole, as if that would help erase the stains on his soul. Why did touching Steve feel so right, but when his father’s piercing eyes met Bucky’s his conscience screamed at him. _Wrong, wrong, wrong wrong wrong, looking in the wrong place._

“Your cousin,” Bucky tried to sound nonchalant. “Is he happy too, being himself?”

“Didn’t use to be, no.” Gina sighed. There was stuff she wasn’t telling him, Bucky knew. Not everyone in the family could be like Gina. “But he is now, I think. He’s got a fella, lives in Brooklyn Heights.”

Bucky knew the reputation of Brooklyn Heights. And Dumbo. And Navy Yard for that matter. Living in Brownsville, though not quite in the path of those infamous places, didn’t make one any less aware of them. It made it easy to avoid them, though, and Bucky avoided them like the plague. He wondered if Steve had been there. Some of those places attracted artists. Writers, painters, musicians. Had Steve seen men out there, on the street, together? Did he see them kissing? Did he see them holding hands? Did he see them wearing drag? Dressed in lace and satin, with lips bright red that made their teeth flash whiter?

Bucky looked down at Gina, her nice full lips, her long lashes. He thought about how she looked with lipstick on. Would he like it on a guy just as much? He thought of Steve and his lips red from the smudged lipstick another girl had left on Bucky and Bucky had then left on Steve. He liked that on Steve very much. Would probably like it on another fella too.

What did that make him? A fucking freak?

In the following days, Bucky avoided thinking about his conversation with Gina as best he could. It kept sneaking up on him, though. When he let his mind wander while they were unloading a ship at the docks and he let his body take on the strain of heavy boxes, his mind slid to Gina’s cousin Marco. When he was showering with lukewarm water, the question about who he was came back to haunt him. How was he supposed to be happy when he didn’t know _who_ he was happy being? Maybe he didn’t deserve to be happy in the first place. Maybe life was just like that. Some people were lucky and scored a happy life, a pure gamble. Others perhaps had lost the game as soon as they peeked out of their mother’s womb.

Thoughts like these were curling and uncurling in his head, until he found himself on a train headed straight for Brooklyn Heights. _Christ, what was he thinking?_ It was early afternoon, when he arrived. _What was he even gonna do there?_ Directionless, he started walking. There were buildings. Of course there were buildings, he didn’t know what he’d expected. Tents? The buildings were slightly nicer than in Brownsville, but most were still shabby. In some places, their shoddiness was contrasted by bright posters announcing a drag night here, a concert there. The neighborhood was bustling and vivid and _alive_ like people just...lived there. Like they lived there, a deceptively normal life, going about their everyday affairs, about their jobs, meeting in cafes and bars and casinos, going dancing in the night. Same as everywhere else, except that everything seemed a shade brighter.

Henry Street was the one that terrified Bucky the most because it was so unapologetically, openly queer it made him quicken his steps and lower his head. He passed by two men walking together, not quite holding hands, but not quite not holding hands either. He walked faster. When he reached the end of the street, instead of rounding the corner to find a train station and go back home, which would be the sensible thing to do, he turned on his heel and walked right back into the heart of Henry Street. It was a cloudy autumn day, but the wind was mild. Bucky still clutched his coat closer to himself, his arms twitching whenever he accidentally met someone’s eyes.

He walked the entire street four times. On his fifth go, when afternoon was only barely still holding onto the day, a tall man came out of a record shop and stopped him by standing right in his path.

Without even an introductory hello, he said, “This is the fifth time you’ve passed here, so you’re either planning on robbing my shop or you’ve gone off the rails.”

“What? No. What?” Bucky hadn’t spoken in so long that his voice was scratchy. The man was old – well his mama wouldn’t say he was old but that was only because _she_ was as old as he was. About fifty-three Bucky guessed from the silver streaks in the man’s otherwise jet-black hair and beard.

“Come in. I’m not dressed enough to do this outside.”

What exactly he meant by “do this” was left unexplained as he took Bucky by the elbow and ushered him in despite his protests. Bucky didn’t really think the man could do anything to him. He was perfectly capable of decking him in the nose and running away, if need be.

The record shop was so cluttered that Bucky had to sidestep at least four boxes to even properly make it through the door. It smelled of new vinyl and paper and tea. He noticed the seven mugs on the counter. This man must really love tea. And really hate washing up.

“So,” the man said, pushing Bucky onto a stack of carton boxes by the counter. “You got a heartache or have you just gone mad?”

“No,” was all Bucky answered. He followed it up with an “I don’t know” and a shrug so that he wouldn’t appear too rude. He was so confused. His head was full of images, alternating between bright and somber, like the flashy posters contrasted with the cloudy sky.

The man hummed. “So what, just can’t deal with the fact you’re queer? That’s nothing new, you know. We get one of you every few weeks.”

“I got a girl?” Bucky said by way of explaining as if that erased all the times he’d sucked Steve’s dick.

The man laughed. “Yeah, but you got a boy, too. Or want to at least.”

Bucky scowled at a record with a trumpet on the cover, but stayed quiet. A jazz song was playing softly in the background, but Bucky couldn’t see where it was coming from as there was no gramophone or radio in sight. It was probably hidden behind some stack or other. Really, this man appreciated order even less than Bucky did.

The man sighed. “I’m Billy, by the way. You want some tea?”

Without waiting for Bucky’s response he shuffled through a narrow door in the corner. Bucky heard the water running, followed by a kettle being put on the stove.

“You love her?” the man – Billy – called from what must have been part office part storage room. Well, the whole shop was practically a storage anyway.

“I don’t know,” Bucky mumbled, surprised that Billy could even hear, when the next question quickly followed.

“You love him?”

“Don’t know, do I?” Bucky’s voice was louder this time, betraying his annoyance. His shoulders slumped when Billy showed up with a scolding gaze and two cups of tea in hand. He handed one to Bucky.

Bucky liked Gina, there was no denying that. But he liked Steve more. There was no denying that either. But maybe, maybe if he knew Gina for longer, he could like her just as much.

“Then you better decide or you’ll end up hurting them both.” Unfortunately, Bucky was pretty sure he’d already hurt one of them. He frowned into his tea. He didn’t even like tea.

Curiously enough, Billy didn’t seem to find Bucky’s predicament strange in the least. He stood there, leaning on the counter, cradling his mug with both his hands, peering at Bucky thoughtfully. Bucky took a sip of his tea, and let the music wash over him. It must be a new record. Bucky had never heard the song before.

_If I didn't care more than words can say, if I didn't care, would I feel this way?_

“I’m happy with her.” Bucky didn’t think this was a lie. Gina’s special definition of happiness aside, he thought this was still true.

Gina made life seem easy. Her mere presence was able to bring the blurred lines of Bucky’s future into focus. For a precious few moments Gina made the world fall away, made it easy to be alive. Steve, on the other hand, made life difficult. His whole life, Steve had been smudging Bucky’s lines, erasing them and drawing new ones.

_What is it that makes my head go 'round and 'round, while my heart just stands still so much?_

Gina brought Bucky’s lines into focus, but Steve helped him create them. Could he let go of that? Live happy with Gina, but leaving who he could be behind? He had the dreadful feeling that his path was so entangled with Steve’s that there couldn’t be a moment in a day when he wouldn’t yearn for him. He tried imagining his life without Steve, and couldn’t. He tried imagining his life without Gina, and could.

But that could change.

He’d only known Gina for two months, he’d known Steve for...he didn’t even remember a time when he _didn’t_ know Steve.

Billy laid his hand on Bucky’s shoulder pulling him out of his thoughts. The way he was looking at him made Bucky want to cry, there was so much softness in his eyes. So much compassion. “Listen, you might be happy with her. I believe you. Just make sure you’re not only happy with her because she makes you forget about who you are.”

_If I didn't care would it be the same? Would my every prayer begin and end with just your name? And would I be sure that this is love beyond compare? Would all this be true if I didn't care for you?_

Bucky nodded. He thought he understood what the man was saying. It was the same thing Gina had said. Being who you are. Being happy being who you are. Well, Bucky, for one, thought he was many things. Maybe he’d missed his chance to be normal, or maybe he’d never been normal in the first place but – well, there was always a but was there not?

He had to try. He had to try being happy with Gina, for his sake and for Steve’s. Gina could claim Marco was happy all she wanted, but Bucky saw the sad twist to her mouth when he’d asked. It looked like choosing one side of happiness always came with losing another, and Bucky, Bucky had so much to lose. He thought about his father’s proud eyes, about his mother’s tight hugs, about Becca, all grown up now, and Annie, the biggest troublemaker in her school. How could he choose the option that left him with losing the happiness he had now? Bucky was never good at being selfless, that was more Steve’s thing. Bucky wanted to have it all and, if he played it right, maybe he wouldn’t have to lose anything. Might be that he was signing up for disaster, but he had to try.

He ended up staying in Billy’s shop until evening crept up on the day. He and Billy didn’t talk much more. Billy bustled around the shop arranging records by following some strange system Bucky couldn’t figure out no matter how hard he tried. He made them both another two cups of tea. He must have had an endless supply of mugs because they all ended up on the counter beside the others. When Bucky finally bid him goodbye, he couldn’t quite bring himself to say thanks, but Billy squeezed his shoulder in silent understanding. Once again, Bucky was overwhelmed with the urge to cry. Instead, he only nodded when Billy said he was welcome any time, already planning to never come back.

When Bucky came home, it was already completely dark outside. Steve was sitting behind the kitchen desk working on a commission. Like he always did when he was working on something, Steve forgot to eat, so Bucky prepared dinner. Cabbage and beans was all they were getting that evening. Colder weather meant less work for Bucky, which meant less food on the table. Steve was trying with taking on extra commissions, but he could only do so much between his classes and the hours he spent helping at Mrs. Green’s bookshop already.

“You know Gina?” Bucky said as if her name hadn’t been dangling unsaid between them for weeks, like a rotting piece of meat in the fridge that everyone knew was there but no one wanted to be the one to drag out.

“The girl you been fucking?” Steve’s fingers paused over a line he’d been drawing – a carton of milk clutched in a boy’s hand.

“Seeing.” Bucky corrected him, turning back to the stove. “The girl I been seeing.”

“Yeah.” Steve said after a beat of silence and, by the sound of pencil on paper, continued drawing .

“We’ve been serious for a while.” Bucky didn’t hear Steve’s pencil stop again because the water had started boiling.

“Serious?” Steve sounded like he would either break the pencil in his hand or throw it at Bucky’s back. His voice was thin as if trying to contain a multitude of emotions, none of them good.

“Yeah.” Bucky confirmed, turning around slowly. Steve’s eyes were dangerously empty.

“So what,” Steve said, his voice laced with an undercurrent of anger, more vicious than Bucky’d ever seen on him before, “you tell her you love her then come home to suck my dick?”

“I don’t tell her I lo –”

“Don’t start with this bullshit.” Steve’s fist was tight around his pencil, the tendons in his too-big hands twitching. “You’d tell a lamppost you loved it if it let you hump it.”

“Didn’t tell you, did I? And you still gave it up to me.” It was out of Bucky’s mouth before he could even feel his mouth opening. Steve’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second, as if he, too, couldn’t quite believe what Bucky had said, but then they narrowed, his irises finally filling with an emotion Bucky could define. Ice-cold fury.

“Get out,” Steve said in a voice so level Bucky would have thought he was reading a user manual any other day. Not then, though. Not when Steve’s teeth were practically bared at Bucky and his whole face was crumpled with anger.

“I –” Fuck. Bucky didn’t mean that.

 _You tell her you love her then come home to suck my dick._ Bucky had told many girls he loved them, but he hadn’t told Gina because she would know it wasn’t true. And he didn’t even dare thinking about saying it to Steve because – because if he said it to Steve...would it ring unbearably true? Would he ever be able to take the words back? If he said it to Steve would it mean forever? “Steve –”

“Get. Out.” Steve’s jaw was twitching. He looked dangerous. For the first time, Bucky saw the man that fought the back alley fights. Unforgiving. Unrelenting.

“Never mind,” Steve spat out when Bucky didn’t move. “I’m going.”

He pushed back the chair so hard it clattered to the floor. Bucky could only stand, rooted to the spot, as Steve grabbed his bag and coat and strode out, slamming the door behind him. Bucky flinched. He stayed in the same spot for an hour, staring at a brown spot on the wall.

Where was Steve gonna go anyway? It was completely dark outside and getting cold as it was wont to do in the evenings. Was he dressed enough? Jesus, if he got pneumonia because of Bucky…

Steve didn’t come back for another three hours. It must have been past midnight when the door finally creaked open and Steve walked in, nose and ears red – of course he hadn’t taken the hat – bringing with him the chill of the cold autumn night. Bucky had moved from leaning against the counter to sitting in the chair. Had gone from staring at the spot on the wall to staring at his hands. When Steve came in he lifted his head. Steve didn’t look at him. He threw a scrunched up ball of paper at Bucky and turned to take off his coat. The piece of paper had bounced off Bucky’s shoulder onto the floor. He bent down and picked it up, smoothing it out as best he could.

It was a drawing of him. Steve never liked showing Bucky the drawings he made of him, but Bucky often took a sneak peak at them. Bucky was the thing Steve always managed to draw the most realistically. It was so accurate it felt like looking in a mirror. This one was no different. Bucky’s usual big mouth that Steve liked teasing him about, his bushy eyebrows, his cleft chin, but on his forehead...what the hell? Wait was that – was that what Bucky thought it was?

“What –?” Bucky frowned, smoothing the sheet of paper further. Steve turned to him. The mutinous pout on his lips was something Bucky was used to.

“What?” Steve’s voice was still angry but the pain in his eyes was hidden and, selfishly, Bucky was glad for that. “You don’t remember? Back at home you kept nagging me to draw you one. Now I did. Drew you a cunt smack in the middle of your stupid forehead. ‘Cause you are one.”

Steve turned and marched right into the bedroom without a second glance. An overwhelming urge to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation squeezed at Bucky’s lungs, but then he looked down at the drawing again. The squeeze of emotions around his chest morphed into something else entirely when he saw the irregular smudges of pencil on the paper. Tears. Steve’s tears. He’d made Steve cry.

He got up, the urge to touch Steve, to hold him, stronger than his embarrassment. He stopped a few paces away from the bed. Steve’s back was turned to the door.

“Steve, I didn’t mean –”

But what had he meant? There was something so ugly inside of Bucky, something so vicious that, in a convoluted way, he wanted Steve to see it all; every ugly thought, every jumbled feeling. He wanted Steve to see it and feel it too. Steve always had everything figured out. For him, every line was clear and separate from others, no dilemma, no hesitation, Steve always knew what the right thing to do was. For once, Bucky wanted Steve to feel the mess that was him. Maybe Bucky was a coward but sometimes being afraid was the smart thing to be. Steve had never understood that.

“Steve –” Bucky walked closer, touching Steve’s shoulder, the need to mend this crack between them more important than the words that weren’t coming. Steve flinched at his touch.

“Don’t touch me.” His body was completely rigid beneath Bucky’s palm. Bucky pulled his hand away. “Don’t touch me ever again.”

Ever again.

_Ever again._

“You don’t mean that.”

Steve turned, fury back in his eyes. “Oh, yeah? Watch me.”

In the next second, Bucky was facing his back again. The room felt smaller than it had ever felt, contrasting painfully with the expansive prospect of never. Never touching Steve again. Never being allowed to kiss him. Never being allowed to lo–

Never was a long time. Never didn’t have an end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can reblog [**this masterpost**](https://synonym-for-life.tumblr.com/post/186452579021/that-moment-divine-e-61k-completed-s-okay) if you like the fic and want to support your friendly neighborhood writer.


	4. The Promised Kiss of Springtime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> F I N A L L Y! Hi! Sorry! Took a long time, but here's the next chapter. Buckle in for more dumb Buck. 
> 
> There are two songs in this chapter. One is [Avanti Popolo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMpdHhuT-is) and the other one (from which this chapter's title AND the title of the whole fic is taken (so an important song!!!) is [All The Things You Are](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhBQd2VMWzA) sung by Helen Forest. [**Entire playlist here.**](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH6I_O9zBr5R8ilJ6XKvuTaEiD4bRZg5O)

When Bucky got into bed that night, he stuck to his own side. He lay so close to the edge he was afraid he’d fall off as soon as he shut his eyes. He stared at the ceiling instead.

He could _feel_ the stiffness of Steve’s body from the other side of the bed. Steve wasn’t sleeping either. He waited for Steve’s breath to even out before he turned his head to look at Steve’s back. He couldn’t see much. Winter was only a pace away and their room got cold during the night, so Steve was burrowed under the blankets, only the back of his head poking out. Even his neck was hidden. Despite that, Bucky couldn’t tear his eyes away from the dark-blond hair sticking every which way. He wondered how pissed off Steve would be if he found Bucky hugging him in the morning, possibly with his dick pressing into Steve’s ass. It was how they’d been waking up a lot recently.

_Don’t touch me._

_Ever again._

Steve would probably hit him. Or pretend Bucky wasn’t even there. Bucky didn’t know which would be worse.

When Bucky finally drifted off, he dreamed of small green plants sprouting on the bed between them. They looked innocent and fresh, the bright green creating a stark contrast with the somber room. The plants grew, vine after vine, growing taller and darker, twining up and up between them until they formed an impenetrable thorny hedge. The worst part of the dream was that Bucky didn’t do anything. He wasn’t even paralyzed. No, the hedge grew until it reached the ceiling, becoming so thick that he wasn’t able to see Steve through the branches anymore, and all he did was lie there and watch how the thorns tore them apart.

He woke up with a start before dawn had properly broken out. In the muted glow of streetlights, Steve was barely visible at the end of the bed, still curled into himself in his corner. Bucky himself hadn’t moved an inch. Looked like touching Steve wasn’t that hard when he didn’t want to be touched. He was glad that his body, even when subconscious, gave Steve the space that he needed. That, Bucky thought, was all fine and well. Right, even. If only it didn’t make him so terribly, awfully, goddamn sad.

He kicked off the covers and got himself to the kitchen. Why was he wallowing in self-pity now? He’d made his choice and he believed it was the right one. He better stop dwelling on it. He boiled the water to make himself some porridge. Even porridge reminded him of Steve, whose mouth twisted whenever he had to eat it for longer than two days in a row. He didn’t hate it, per se, but he sure didn’t like it.

Bucky snatched his mind away from Steve and made himself think about Gina, about her scratchy laugh, about her strong fingers curling in his hair before she pulled at it hard, baring his neck so she could bite it. He smiled. Gina really was something.

 _But Steve was something too_ , his brain helpfully supplied.

 _More than something_ , it continued supplying even though Bucky really hadn’t asked for it.

First and foremost Steve was and always had been his friend. They could have that. Friendship. It was a good thing. A noble thing. Something for the ages. Right?

Bucky ate his porridge, cleaned the kitchen, mopped the floor, and even started mixing up dough for bread before Steve finally woke up. Well, Bucky suspected Steve had been lying in bed for a good half an hour before he decided he didn’t have to stay away from Bucky to stay pissed off at him.

“Mornin’,” Bucky said with a quick glance in Steve’s direction when he finally showed up in the kitchen. Steve’s eyes were alert. Like Bucky had presumed, Steve’d been awake for a while now.

“What’re you doing?” Steve was frowning—Bucky could tell even though he was avoiding looking at Steve’s face. Steve’s frowns weren’t mere facial expressions. No, Steve sent his frowns off in waves of disapproval.

“What?” It was quite obvious what Bucky was doing. What a stupid question.

“What is this?” Steve waved his hands at the flour-covered table. “What are you fucking doing?”

“Hey!” Bucky reacted a bit defensively to the judgment in Steve’s tone. “Can’t a man make some bread?”

“You’ve never made bread in your entire life, Bucky.” Steve was frowning with his voice now. God, he was such a pain.

“Oh.”

Now that Steve mentioned it, Bucky really hadn’t. Where had he even learned how to make bread? Was he even making bread? He thought he was. He looked at his sticky hands. He felt like he was going a bit mad. Was this what emotional stress did to people? “Yeah. Yeah well, how hard can it be, right?”

“Looking at the mess you’re making?” Steve raised his eyebrows at the moist blob of dough on the table, then pointed at Bucky’s general direction. Bucky was covered in flour pretty much down to his ankles. “Pretty hard.”

“God.” Bucky tried to brush some of the white powder off his trousers, but his hands were equally dirty so it didn’t help in the least. He looked at the floor that he’d mopped an hour ago. It, too, was covered in flour and bits of dough.

“I’m gonna go for a walk,” Steve said after a few seconds of silence.

“It’s six in the morning,” Bucky reminded him.

“Yeah, and you’re making fucking bread. That we don’t need. Because we have an entire loaf left.”

Steve didn’t say it, but Bucky heard the unspoken _Get yourself together. You made this mess, now deal with it._ And it wasn’t just the bread-making mess Steve was thinking of either. Steve went back to their room to get dressed. When he came back he was bundled up in a heavy coat and a scarf. He still refused to wear a hat even though the autumn chill was well and truly at its worst at six in the morning. Bucky didn’t think arguing with Steve to wear it would go down well today, so he kept quiet, and answered Steve’s terse, “Be back soon,” with a barely audible “Yeah.”

If Bucky pounded the dough a bit harder than needed after the door clicked close, no one would ever know. Nor about the angry way that he slammed the sorry-looking blob onto the tray, nor about the hot tears he furiously brushed away, smudging his cheeks with flour. Like Steve had so vividly put it the night before, he’d been a cunt. He’d been a right cunt to Steve and they both knew it. Who would have thought being a cunt could hurt this much, eh?

Once the bread was in the oven—not rising because Bucky quite obviously fucked it up—he felt a bit better. Steve still wasn’t back by the time the bread was done, but Bucky didn’t worry. Well, he didn’t worry _too much_. Steve liked being alone sometimes, needed it, as he’d told him on more than one occasion. Was probably an artist thing.

Once the bread cooled down, Bucky dug in. It tasted like shit but Bucky ate it anyway. It was his shit to swallow.

Steve came back hours later, cold and red-faced, but his shoulders didn’t hunch quite as much as before. They nodded at each other, Bucky from their bed and Steve from the doorway.

“You ate the bread?” Steve asked, eyebrows rising. He smiled too, a bit stiff, but it was there, and Bucky appreciated it. He knew the awkwardness between them would need some time to dissipate. Not to mention that Steve had never been the forgive and forget type. Or forgive but don’t forget. Steve was very much a don’t forgive and don’t forget type.

“Yeah?” For a second, Bucky wondered how come Steve knew that, but he supposed it was pretty obvious from the way he was desperately clutching at his churning stomach.

“Well,” Steve shook his head and turned to the kitchen, “I hope you don’t die.”

It was as much forgiveness as Bucky was getting, and he would take it all. They’d be fine. They had to be. They were Steve and Bucky, Bucky and Steve, friends forever. When they married and had families, they would live close by, maybe on the same street, maybe even in the same building, and Bucky would be able to see Steve every day. Fuss over him every winter like he always did. Although maybe Steve’s wife would be doing most of the fussing. Bucky’s belly churned again, but this time he didn’t think it was the bread.

No one knew the exact amount of fussing Steve needed but him. Steve needed to be fussed over exactly to the point of mild annoyance, and then you had to stop completely, pretend you’d never fussed at all, and once Steve worked over his annoyance, he would (most of the time) come to the conclusion that you were right, and do what you told him to. But then, if you dared smugly throw an “I was right, huh?” at him you had to prepare for much greater resistance the next time fussing was required (about an hour later). Now, sometimes rubbing it in his face paid off, if only for how pissed Steve got, but sometimes that meant you were getting the finger for the entire day whenever you opened your mouth to say something. It was a delicate balance, and Bucky wouldn’t trust anyone but himself to do it.

He listened to Steve rummaging around the refrigerator until he started dozing off. He was glad he didn’t have to work that day. He would have puked all over the cargo.

 

<<>>

 

By Thanksgiving most of the awkwardness between them had withered away. It turned out that Steve hadn’t really meant it when he said that Bucky should never touch him again. Once the initial stiffness was gone, they slotted back into their friendship with deceptive ease. Bucky still clapped Steve on the back, he still slung his arm over his shoulders, or elbowed him in the ribs when Steve was being a pain. Somehow that was infinitely worse than never touching Steve again. It left Bucky’s skin burning and his stomach fluttering. The heat that pooled in his belly when Steve’s eyes lingered for a second too long froze the smile on Bucky’s face, and the flicker of sadness in Steve’s eyes when Bucky didn’t remove his hand quickly enough made the corners of Bucky’s mouth tighten further.

Gina invited Bucky to her family home for Thanksgiving dinner, but Bucky couldn’t leave Steve alone in their apartment while he stuffed his mouth with Italian food. Besides, the thought of Gina’s cousin being there lingered at the back of his mind. He was more terrified of it than he dared admit. What if the fella took one look at Bucky and knew? What if Bucky said one word and Marco would immediately put him down as a fellow man-fucker? Not caring—daring—to deal with it, he told Gina he and Steve had been invited to Bucky’s home already. The only downside was that he and Steve then had to go to the Barnes’s for dinner, even if they hadn’t originally intended to. Gossip in Brooklyn was faster than the wind and reached more corners than it too.

Even though Bucky had been planning on staying home lying around and preparing a mediocre dinner with Steve, Thanksgiving with his family ended up being pretty fun in the end. His mother fussed over them, berating them for never visiting. Becky was just as smart as she’d always been. She had more space facts to share, but all the science was becoming hard to follow. Not that Bucky would ever admit that. Becky had also started working on the weekends to earn money for college. Bucky’s father rolled his eyes at her obsession with space and stars and physics, grumbling about how having smart kids only made a hole in the parents’ pockets, but the way his eyes glowed disproved his pretend annoyance. The pride on his face stirred a searing feeling of shame in Bucky’s guts. He was the oldest, and all he’d achieved in his life was moving from a shit job to a shit job and doing the dirty with his best friend.

When, inevitably, his father asked about girls, Bucky could finally say he’d found one. And a good one at that. Maybe not a good girl in his mother’s sense of the word, but to Bucky she was the best one he’d ever met. With a dopey grin he promised to bring her round for Christmas Eve. He didn’t dare look at Steve until he’d made quite sure eleven-year-old Annie had thoroughly distracted him. He looked fine. They were fine. Steve was probably over it already. Out of the two of them, it was always Bucky who got dumb with feelings. Steve was much more sensible.

His conviction that Steve was the sensible one out of the two of them lasted for about three hours. They walked home, a decision Bucky regretted immediately, when he saw how Steve’s teeth started chattering from the cold wind. When they finally opened the door to their apartment, relief flooded Bucky. Despite dismal heating, it was much warmer inside, but while Bucky stopped shivering quickly, Steve didn’t. He tried to hide it, but his lips kept trembling involuntarily. They skipped the shower and brushed their teeth in the kitchen sink, not wanting to brave the freezing-cold tiles of the communal bathrooms.

Before they got under the covers, Bucky folded one of the blankets in two so that Steve had four layers covering him instead of three. Steve, of course, grumbled about how he was fine and how Bucky should stop treating him like a baby, but Bucky glowered so hard that Steve relented and let Bucky throw the cover over him. Bucky slid into his side of the bed, bidding Steve goodnight. Like most nights, Steve curled in on himself, facing away from Bucky. His answering goodnight was broken up by a visible shiver.

This was bad. Steve hadn’t gotten this shivery for a long time now. He was less ill now than when he was a child, but he was still quick to catch a cold and Bucky never stopped worrying about deadly pneumonias that always loomed during winter. Bucky forced himself to stop staring at Steve’s back like an overbearing mother and let his eyes focus on the pile of clothes on the floor. That didn’t stop him from noticing that Steve was still trembling. He waited for the shivers to subside, but Steve kept on shaking.

“This is ridiculous,” Bucky rolled over and scooted closer. “I’m gonna warm you up, and you ain’t allowed to say one wo—”

“No.” Steve’s voice sounded strained. Bucky placed his palm on top of Steve’s arm, Steve pushed it off, turning his head a fraction. The jut of his jaw was as stubborn as ever.

“I said you weren’t allowed to say a single wor—”

“You’re not my ma.” Steve’s scowl, though mighty, was undermined by the paleness of his face.

“Really? That’s what we gonna do now?” Bucky scowled in return. When Steve turned back around Bucky sighed. “Steve, please. You’re shaking like a goddamn leaf. I can’t—I don’t want you to get sick.”

Steve didn’t even give him the grace to reply. The room was eerily quiet—as quiet as a room in the middle of a rowdy street could be.

“Fuck’s sake, Steve.” Bucky would have thrown his hands up if he hadn’t been keeping them under the covers. He continued more softly, “I won’t—no funny business, okay? But you really do need to warm up.”

Another beat of silence passed between them before Steve finally nodded. Hesitantly, Bucky wrapped his arms around him. They’d done this so many times before when they were kids, and... not so long ago, when they kept waking up pressed together. Steve was so cold. Jesus Christ. He ran his hand down Steve’s arm firmly, rubbing the skin to make it heat up faster.

“Goddammit, you’re half-frozen,” he said, slotting even closely against his back. “Why didn’t you say something? I would have made you some tea, or soup, or whatever. We gotta get you a new coat. That one won’t do for the winter. Does it have holes in it? I bet it has holes in it and you were just too proud to say it.” Bucky’s lips were tingling when he spoke because Steve’s hair tickled at his lips.

“Stop fussing, Buck.” Steve was all stiff and awkward in Bucky’s arms, and so skinny, god he was so skinny, much skinnier than Gina. His shoulder was all bony and his spine all bumpy and Bucky worried so much, maybe more so now that he felt so...far away from him. Maybe more so now that he felt the prickles of the hedge on the surface of his skin.

“The day I stop fussing is the day you die, Rogers, jeez.” Bucky kept on talking because the familiarity of fussing was easier to deal with than the familiarity of Steve’s body in his arms. It was easier to focus on Steve’s health than on the way he smelled so much like _Steve_ that Bucky wanted to bury his face in his hair and kiss the nape of his neck. “You ever thought of leaving Brooklyn? Moving someplace warmer?”

“No. Not really.” Steve shifted in his arms for the first time, curious perhaps at the very fact he’d never thought about it at all.

Bucky had. Many times. Had even planned for it every single time Steve got sick. One time he’d even packed their bags. It was the only thing that kept him from losing his mind after the doctor told them Steve wouldn’t make it. He’d packed their miserable belongings into one small leather suitcase with the promise of moving to Florida as soon as Steve got better. Of course, he was also twelve at the time, so when Bucky went to buy the train ticket, the lady at the sales window looked at him over her glasses and smiled patronizingly as if he were a _child_ —which he _was_ , but it was still rude—and told him the pennies he was offering wouldn’t even cover a third of the price. Bucky went home, sad and beaten, and spent the night on red-eyed Sarah Rogers’s couch.

“You want to? Move somewhere nicer? Somewhere where the winters aren’t so cold?” Bucky had to talk to distract himself from how much he’d missed Steve’s skin against his own.

“I don’t know. I can’t imagine myself leaving Brooklyn. I know there’s a whole world out there, but… guess it just feels like home.” Steve gave a small shrug.

“Yeah, yeah it does,” Bucky had to agree. “But the winters get so damn cold. Maybe when we get rich, we can buy a villa on a sandy beach, to spend our winters there. You know, like a holiday. But for the whole season.”

“Buck?”

“Yeah?”

“Please shut up.” At first, Bucky thought Steve’s voice was thick from sleepiness, but from the way Steve’s heart beat too fast in his chest, Bucky realized it was heavy with emotion. And of course it was. Bucky was so stupid. He’d been talking as if—as if they had a future, just them, living a dream, owning a villa, taking a three-month vacation if they so pleased. God, he was dumb. He should seal his mouth shut and never speak again. He almost whispered an apology into the dark night, but stopped himself in time. He didn’t think it would be welcome.

Steve had stopped trembling and was getting pretty warm, but Bucky couldn’t quite make himself let go. Burrowing his face deeper into the pillow he thought about Gina. He held onto Steve for a while longer, until he ran out of excuses and guilt started dripping into his stomach, putrid and acidic. Gina and Steve both deserved better than this mess of a person he was. He extracted himself from Steve once Steve’s breathing calmed down. Bucky didn’t get a wink of sleep the entire night.

Tired and moody, he dragged himself to the docks. The pace he worked that day made Joe roll his eyes and push him out of the way for some of the heavier loads. Morty asked him if he was drunk about five times. In the end, Gary, the boss, sent him home early, telling him he couldn’t afford one of his workers crushing his foot under a crate because he was falling asleep standing.

Bucky didn’t go home, though. Just like the first time, he didn’t know what gripped him, but he boarded a train for Brooklyn Heights and, wrapped up snugly in his coat, his gloves, and his hat (because he wasn’t dumb like Steve), he trudged right onto Henry Street. The wind was picking up, cutting through layers of clothes. Bucky hated the wind, but it kept people off the streets, for which he was grateful. The sky was grey and cloudy. Technically, it was still autumn and they weren’t expecting snow yet, but it was bound to come soon. You could smell it in the crisp air.

If he’d walked up and down the street directionless the first time he’d been there, this time, he knew exactly where he was going. He opened the door to Billy’s shop— _The Gramophone_ , he read the curvy black letters on the window. Welcomed by a chime, he slowly walked in.

“Good aftern—” Billy was stocking a shelf and had turned with his pleasant “hello lovely customer” greeting on his lips when he heard the chime. When he saw who it was, his smile turned down a notch in brightness, but turned up a notch in sincerity. “Oh, hello there.”

Once Bucky was firmly wrapped up in the smell of tea and vinyl, he didn’t know what exactly he’d been planning to do. The truth was he hadn’t planned anything. Instead of standing dumbly among boxes of unsorted records, he bid Billy an unenthusiastic hello in return, and turned to peruse the nearest shelf.

Billy left him to his own devices because Billy was a smart man. However, when Bucky was still there, sifting through records half an hour later, with no obvious intention of leaving or buying anything, Billy asked, “Want some tea?”

“I hate tea,” Bucky said with a grimace.

“You drank three cups last time,” Billy just _had_ to mention that, didn’t he? Bucky was in _a state_ last time, and the fact that he’d actually drunk that dried-leaf broth only accentuated the fact.

“I hated every cup.” Bucky shrugged. Billy barked out a laugh. He continued to snort stupidly on his way to the office, the sound becoming more muted when he stepped through the narrow door. It was a good thing Billy was insensitive to Bucky’s antics because Bucky supposed he was being a bit of a cunt again. But Bucky couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Billy was an old man, living a queer life in a queer neighborhood, and he was completely _normal_ , the way any slightly wacky person was normal, and Bucky was finding it hard to deal.

Billy made them a cup of tea each and Bucky took it when offered because… well… apparently he was still in a state.

“So… everything okay?” Billy asked, plopping down on top of the counter, uncaring about the stacks of paper beneath his ass. Bucky had never seen an adult act so silly. He tried imagining his father sitting on top of the table and had to choke down a laugh. It was good to see that not all old people were quite as boring.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Bucky replied after a while. He took a sip out of his mug. It gave him something to do. He might have overreacted with his hate for tea—he didn’t really have any strong tea-related feelings.

“Okay.” Billy nodded. When Bucky didn’t say anything more, Billy continued, “I’m okay, by the way. Thanks for asking.”

“Umm yeah, that’s good. Yeah. Swell. Sorry.” Bucky scratched his head, embarrassed. His ma would whack him over the head with a kitchen towel for his lack of manners. With a sigh Bucky found the closest unopened box and crumpled onto it. “I miss him.”

Billy waited for Bucky to say something more, but when nothing came forward he said slowly, “That’s normal, you know. Missing people when they’re not there. Happens all the time.”

“But he is there,” Bucky said, possibly looking at Billy for the first time since he entered. His grey hair was particularly messy today. “He’s right there all the time and I still miss him like hell.”

“He’s your friend?”

“Best friend.”

“Right.” Billy looked skeptical. Bucky didn’t want to know why, and he hoped Billy wouldn’t feel inclined to share. “What do you miss?”

Bucky tried to fight down the blush but it spread, starting high on his cheekbones, and continuing its way all around his face until it reached the tips of his hair. Billy smiled at him wryly, shaking his head.

“If that’s all you miss, you’ll be fine.” Billy’s voice was dry but amused.

Was that all Bucky missed? Kissing Steve? Touching him? Did he only miss him because he got used to getting off with him? If he loved Steve, _how_ he showed the love made no difference right? Love was love. They didn’t have to ruin their lives only because they got horny a couple of times.

“It’s hard because we spend a lotta time together.” Bucky took another sip of his tea. He still hadn’t figured out which tea it was.

“Maybe you shouldn’t spend so much time together?” Billy suggested. Bucky looked at him as if he was insane. He didn’t want to spend less time with Steve. “Maybe not,” Billy said after seeing Bucky’s look of incredulity at his proposal.

“Definitely not. He needs someone to thump some sense into him every once in a while.” The thought of leaving Steve to his own devices terrified Bucky. Maybe it wasn’t fair of him to treat Steve like a child, but he’d proven again and again that he had the impulse control of a four-year-old. “And by ‘every once in a while’ I mean every day.”

They fell silent again, but it was more pleasant this time. Billy swayed silently to the soft sounds of the violin coming from the gramophone. Classical music. Bucky didn’t recognize it but he had to admit it made for a lovely atmosphere, especially while watching the wind blow dried leaves mixed with an occasional chocolate wrapper down the street.

“What’s your name, son?” Billy asked him later, handing him a second cup of tea. “I think it’s only fair to know what to call you.”

For a moment Bucky considered lying. He didn’t think Billy would tell anyone he was there but one could never know. He told him anyway. “Bucky. Well, officially it’s James, but everyone calls me Bucky.”

“Bucky,” Billy rolled the word around his tongue, then smirked. “Sounds like a bad drag queen name.”

“Does not!” Bucky half-groaned, half-yelped, immediately vowing to never tell this to Steve. Steve would have a field day—a field _lifetime_ —mocking Bucky for it.

“It really does. I mean, the boys who do drag usually have better taste, but every once in a while you get one called Tonky or Mimsey. You’d fit right in with those.” Billy started to laugh when Bucky covered his face with his hands. “Hey, lighten up. You needed that laugh.”

“I didn’t laugh,” Bucky reminded him, though there was a smile tugging at his lips.

“Fine, _I_ needed that laugh. You’re a bit of a downer.” Billy winked at him. Bucky did laugh then.

“I’ll have you know that I’m always the life of the party.” He straightened his back and gave Billy his cockiest smile.

“The pity party? I don’t doubt that at all,” Billy deadpanned. Bucky laughed again. He liked Billy. Even if he insisted on giving Bucky his mediocre tea. Or maybe because of it. When he said his goodbye that evening, he felt lighter, less wrapped up in his own head. He knew he’d come back soon.

December, with its Christmas cheer and smells of cinnamon wafting down the streets along with the smell of burning coal, instilled an optimism inside Bucky that he hadn’t felt for a long time. Steve was swamped with commissions because everyone wanted a good poster or a nicely painted slogan for their Christmas special offers. Work overload meant Steve had to stop working at Mrs. Green’s bookshop, but since Bucky was low on work, he asked her if he could offer her a hand instead. At first, she frowned at him, asking if he’d ever even held a book in his hand. It made Bucky splutter with indignation. He told her that, out of the two of them, it was Steve who was basically illiterate, and started enumerating all the books he’d read. She was duly impressed with Bucky, hiring him on the spot. To Bucky’s amusement she started giving Steve the stink eye after that. Apparently, there was only one spot for a good worker in her heart.

Working at the bookshop had one downside—seeing Louise on the daily. She kept climbing the counter and fluttering her eyelashes at him. One time, and Bucky wasn’t proud of it, but one time he even farted in her presence to see if that would deter her advances. It didn’t. She merely giggled and, to Bucky’s mounting exasperation, actually slapped his ass. Bucky told Gina to stop by more often after that, hoping that if Louise saw his claims about having a girlfriend were true, she’d finally stop harassing him. Unfortunately for Bucky, Gina was an asshole too. As soon as she realized the amusement potential that watching Louise being sweet on Bucky provided, she denied all claims of being Bucky’s girl, even going so far as to say Bucky had lied because he’d been _so awful lonely lately_.

Bucky moaned about it to Steve, but if he’d thought he would find any sympathy there, he was terribly mistaken. Steve laughed so hard he started wheezing and Bucky spent ten minutes rubbing his back to calm him down, all the while Steve kept gasping “It was worth it,” and “Best laugh I’ve had in months,” in between shaky breaths.

Christmas Eve loomed on the horizon, and Bucky was becoming more and more nervous about Gina meeting his family. He hated to admit it, but he was even more worried about Gina meeting Steve. Thinking it might not be the best idea to have them meet on the day of the Lord Savior’s birth _just in case_ , he tentatively asked Steve if he wanted to go to the pictures with them. If Steve hesitated for a split second, they both pretended not to notice. The important part was the final nod and an attempt at a smile.

The good thing about the pictures was that you didn’t have to talk much, so bar a few words before and after the movie and a few jokes in between, the conversation didn’t have much chance to go sour. While it might have been true that Bucky felt Gina’s hand inside his a lot more acutely than ever before, and while it might have been true that when he kissed her and his eyes met Steve’s just before his eyelashes shuttered, his stomach had twisted violently, at the end of the day, that was Bucky’s problem and he would deal with it like he’d dealt with that shitty attempt at bread he’d made.

“She’s nice,” Steve said into the dark room, after they’d got to bed that night. “A bit crazy,” Bucky felt the covers shift as Steve shrugged, “but nice.”

“Yeah. Yeah, she is,” Bucky whispered back and tried to pretend that that description hadn’t made his heart shatter like glass. Steve could very well have been describing himself.

In a blink of an eye, Christmas Eve was upon them, and the three of them found themselves knocking on the Barnes apartment door. Once the door opened, they were thrown into the commotion that was the Barnes family. First there were hugs—of which Annie gave the most enthusiastic and the most bone-crushing ones—and introductions—Bucky sweated all through the handshaking—and then there were the final preparations to be done. Everyone felt like they should help, but no one knew how, and they were making such nuisances of themselves that Bucky’s dad shooed everyone out of the kitchen. One of Annie’s friends was over too. They both insisted on trying to win as much of Steve’s attention as possible. Bucky suspected that Annie had developed a bit of a crush on Steve during Thanksgiving dinner and it looked like it had only grown more potent during the time they didn’t see each other.

“I think Annie has a crush on you,” Bucky whispered into Steve’s ear when Annie insisted on making Steve sing O Holy Night with her.

“Bucky!” Steve yelped, horrified, hissing, “She’s thirteen.”

“Twelve,” Bucky corrected, making Steve groan and bury his head in his arms.

Once they finally sat down, his ma and his dad at either end of the table, with Steve by his ma’s side and Annie and Martha, who insisted on sitting next to him, beside him, Bucky was quite glad the food was there to break up the incessant chattering that had been making his ears ring. He sat between Gina and Becky who both found it hard to shut up, so he was _really_ glad for the food.

The first thing Bucky’s father asked about was, as always, work. He wanted to know if he’d found a more dignified job than loading cargo. Bucky told him about the bookshop, but this only made his father wrinkle his nose, so Bucky smiled and said loading ships wasn’t even that bad; it gave him muscles, which helped with the ladies. Gina rolled her eyes when Bucky winked at her, but it made his dad laugh and drop the subject.

The table was absolutely laden with dishes. Bucky’s ma really outdid herself. Well, his dad prepared the meat; pork loin and beef steak. It either meant that his parents were doing well financially or that they really wanted to impress. He thought it was a bit of both and was glad for it. Bucky tucked in with great enthusiasm. He saw Steve doing the same. They smirked at each other when their eyes met. They hadn’t eaten this well since… well since last Christmas probably. Winnifred nodded happily when Steve got himself a large helping of oven-baked potatoes. She’d made them just the way Steve liked them best, and Bucky was infinitely grateful for it. Bucky often overlooked it, but his ma took care of Steve as if he was her own son. Or at least a favorite nephew.

George soon started interrogating Gina about what she did, what school she went to, where she lived, and who her family was. It soon turned out that Bucky’s father knew her uncle.

“Wait, wait your last name is DiGiorno? I know a DiGiorno. Gio! Fella my age, comes to the bar on the corner of Wyckoff Avenue and Himrod Street!”

“Yeah!” Gina nodded. “His name is Gio! But there’s loads of Gios in Brooklyn. Wyckoff Avenue and Himrod Street? That’s Bushwick right? He does live somewhere there, yes.”

“Bushwick, yes!” George took another bite of his steak. Mumbling around it, to Becky’s disgust, he continued, “He hasn’t been here long. Talks with a real strong accent. Think he only came here two years ago?”

“Oh, yes, that might be him then!”

“Ah! Ragin’ socialist too?” Bucky’s dad barked out a laugh when Gina nodded, laughing as well. “We get into fights about politics all the time. Him and his socialism. He’d just give everything to the people. But people, I say, are mostly stupid. Me and him, we go on and on about politics until—” he looked at his wife as if he were afraid of being scolded, “—we get a bit corked. And then we’re best friends.”

They continued chatting about Gina’s uncle, soon moving on to her aunt, grandma, late grandpa, mother’s side, father’s side… until Bucky stopped listening. When Bucky’s ma joined in as well he rolled his eyes at Becky. They shared the deep hate of people talking about other people no one even knew, much less cared about. Well, Gina cared about them obviously, but no one else knew who Andrea and Rossella and Carla were, and yet his dad wanted to know every single detail about them.

Bucky, Steve, and Becky started talking about Becky’s decision to attend college, which of course, again led to her babbling about space. She explained how this scientist Hartland Snyder calculated that when stars collapsed—stars could collapse?—the amount of gravitation—all Bucky knew about gravitation was that it made you fall flat on your ass—somehow created a massive _thing that wasn’t really_ _a thing_ in space that was really dense and sucked everything around it in and not even light could escape from it. The moment of intense—and in Bucky’s case, undesired, education—ended when Annie spoke up.

“You’re kinda like this _thing that’s not really a thing_ ,” she said in a voice way too bold for a twelve-year-old girl. Her eyes were focused on Steve, unblinking.

Steve’s eyebrows drew together in bewilderment. “Uhh, I’m a collapsed star?”

“No,” Annie shook her head. “You’re just so nice that even light doesn’t want to escape from you.”

The worst part? Bucky absolutely agreed.

“Uhh,” Steve said again, eloquent as ever, blushing the shade of the tomato sauce that was on his plate. A quick glance at Bucky didn’t help with his embarrassment. Bucky was waggling his eyebrows at him while trying, unsuccessfully, to stifle his laughter. Steve forced a smile through the boiled-crab red skin. “Thank you, Annie. That’s, umm, very kind of you.”

“Do you think I’m quite as nice as a collapsed star too?”

“Uhh…” Steve glanced at Bucky again, his eyes begging for help. He must have figured out no salvation was forthcoming because he gave Bucky a dirty look of betrayal.

Becky too was glaring, but not at Bucky. She was scowling at Annie, while she started at Steve fluttering her eyes at him. Her friend, Martha, was silently giggling beside her, hitting her arm, whether in encouragement or praise, Bucky didn’t know.

“Don’t be gross, Annie,” Becky threw a napkin at her head, but her aim was so bad it hit Martha in the chin. Becks, in her true fashion of not giving a damn, didn’t even blink. “Steve’s kinda... _old_.”

“Steve’s not old!” Bucky said, perhaps slightly too offended on Steve’s behalf, but if Steve was old, so was Bucky, and Bucky _wasn’t_ old.

“Could we, please, stop talking about me?” Steve looked about ready to bury his head in his hands.

“Oh, no, definitely not,” Bucky gloated. “Becks, come on, give us some more space facts.” Bucky elbowed Becky. She elbowed him back, rolling her eyes. If she continued doing that, all she’d be looking at would be the inside of her admittedly brilliant brain.

“The universe is endless.” Bucky said when Becky didn’t share any more knowledge. He had to do everything himself. Such a smart sister and she wasn’t even ready to think for him. Bucky batted his eyelashes at Steve. “Endless, like my loooove for youuuu.”

“Your stupidity’s what’s endless.” Steve was in Becks’s Rolling Eyes Camp it seemed. Still, there was a smile tugging at his lips. It warmed Bucky’s belly better than all the mulled wine had. He didn’t have time to dwell on it though, having to dive to the side to avoid a pea pelting through the air. He thought it was Annie who had thrown it, but he couldn’t be sure.

Unwilling to stop teasing despite the flying food, he straightened up, eyes wide and wondrous. “Steve, are you the sun? Because you’re just as bright,” Bucky sighed, reaching across the table, taking Steve’s hand in his. He sighed again, deep and prolonged, staring at Steve mock-lovingly.

“And just as sure to explode,” he deadpanned, yelping when Annie kicked him in the shins. Steve laughed, pinching the tender skin on the underside of Bucky’s forearm making him yelp again.

“Ahh, still like children,” Bucky’s ma piped up and Bucky realized the conversation between the other three had long ended. His ma turned conspiratorially to Gina. “It’s always been like this, you know. Brothers since the day they met.”

She smiled first at Steve and then at Bucky, wide and warm and innocent. Bucky became aware that his hand was still resting on top of Steve’s, the angle at which he was holding his extended arm awkward, which made the action all the more apparent. He pulled his hand back, wrapping his arm around the back of Gina’s chair.

Brothers. He searched for Steve’s eyes but they were adamantly refusing to meet his. Steve smiled at Winnifred, a poor attempt at a sentimental smile. It looked waxy. There was tension in the air that would require the thickest, sharpest kitchen knife to cut through. Bucky wondered if anyone else could feel it. He thought not, as his mother was still chattering. He hoped to all saints his father didn’t notice either, but was too afraid to check.

“You see,” Winnifred took another bite of her food completely unaware that Bucky was holding himself together by seams made out of fear itself, “constant bickering,” she nodded between them, “yelling, scuffling. But God forbid someone else tried to start a thing with the two. The number of times they came in with a bloodied nose and a split lip because someone monkeyed with one of them...”

Bucky had never really told his ma that it was always Steve that got monkeyed with and that it was always Steve who picked fights even when they weren’t about him. He’d never told her that Bucky went along with it because it was either that or watch his friend get his ass handed to him. It didn’t seem important then and it didn’t seem important now.

Gine looked at him sideways, raising her eyebrow slightly enough for only Bucky to notice. He knew what she was saying; “I’ve seen you with a black eye and a split lip two weeks ago and I have a distinct feeling you were lying about the drunk brawl.” Bucky, just as imperceptibly, gave her a small apologetic shrug. She smiled.

“They slept together too. All through their childhoods. Half the time, Bucky’s bed was occupied by two, and half the time, Steve’s was. Of course, when they got into their wild years they stopped, grew out of it once they started chasing skirts.”

There was noise in Bucky’s ears that didn’t have anything to do with the clinging of plates and cutlery. A sort of whistling, as if there was wind rushing around every corner of his brain. All he could see was their small apartment, with their small bed. One bed. Steve and him stopping to sleep in the same bed when they were fifteen because something had changed between them. Steve and him sleeping in the same bed again, years later, and realizing nothing changed about the thing that had changed.

He tried resisting looking at Steve, but his eyes were completely disobedient. They insisted on staring at his floppy blonde fringe and his overly-large pink mouth that was trying so hard to smile. Why didn’t Steve look at him? He just wanted Steve to look at him, goddammit. Why was beyond him. He didn’t even care. He just needed Steve to look at him.

“They were so good with the girls too,” Bucky’s ma continued explaining. She gave Annie and Becky a small fond smile. Annie didn’t notice because she was still staring at Steve, and Becky didn’t notice because she was frowning at Bucky. What had he done wrong now? “They always played with them. Took so much work off our shoulders. Well, they often brought them back with their knees all scraped and their dresses torn, but still. Brothers and sisters, they were. Still are.”

Bucky thought he would start laughing from the sheer irony of that statement. Not only had he had Steve’s dick in his mouth and liked it, he couldn’t remember a day in his life when he’d actually thought of Steve as his brother. They’d spent their entire childhoods running around Brooklyn together, sleeping in the same bed, eating the same food, sharing the same experiences and always, always, this underlying feeling of _something_ accompanied them. At first, it was sweet and innocent and he called it friendship. Then it turned hot and exciting and bitter and dangerous and he didn’t know what to call it anymore, and feared what he _wanted_ to call it.

Then there was Annie gazing at Steve with stars in her eyes. Bucky thought that if this whole thing hadn’t made his stomach twist with guilt, he would have cracked a rib laughing. It looked like falling for Steve was in the Barnes genes. Except for Becks, who, to Bucky’s knowledge, had never once looked after anyone twice. Sometimes he wished he could be like her. Happy with her science books and making friends with a brilliant future.

He squeezed Gina’s shoulder, glancing at her. Future. He could have a future with her. Maybe it wouldn’t be a brilliant one and maybe they’d still struggle, but she promised a future. How could he throw that away?

As if on cue his father spoke up, “You’re right, Winnie, the boys’ve always been good with the girls. Now, what I want to know is, if we’re gonna have any kids running around anytime soon?”

George winked at Gina and nodded at Bucky conspiratorially. Bucky’s stomach dropped right into Mr Johnson’s apartment below. He squeezed Gina’s shoulder too tightly.

“Uhh…” his mouth wasn’t making words, he knew it wasn’t, but there were no words in his brain to even pronounce. He should have expected this. He should have prepared. It would have been easier. He’d be ready to drop a sly smile, shake his head, say they’d only been dating for three months now. But he could finally feel Steve’s eyes on him, could feel them burning his skin and all he wanted was to look back at him and beg him to save him. He didn’t deserve to be saved, though. Especially not by Steve. Who knew what Steve was thinking. Was he hurt? No. No, he couldn’t be hurt. Steve knew. Bucky’d told him he and Gina were getting serious. It looked like Bucky was the only one who hadn’t really grasped what exactly that meant.

“Oh, George,” his mother cut through the awkward silence, “don’t you think it’s a bit too soon?”

“We hadn’t really talked about it. But yeah, ain’t been together for more than three months,” Gina piped up too. Her voice was strong, but Bucky felt the nervousness beneath.

She squeezed Bucky’s thigh under the table, grounding him. “Umm, yeah.” Bucky tried to smile and shake his head in a fond but exasperated way his mother sometimes used with his father. “Don’t be too curious, it killed the cat.”

Luckily, George thought that was funny. His laughter boomed across the table, but it did nothing to dissipate the tension that had settled into Bucky’s muscles.

“Well, as long as you do right by her and put a ring on her finger first, James...” George added. His dad refused to call him Bucky ever since he turned thirteen. _A man cannot carry a silly childish name, and you’re well on your path to be a man_ , he’d said and that was that. Bucky had refused to respond to ‘James’ for three whole months until finally caving in.

“Ooooh,” Annie had finally awoken from her Steve-induced trans, “you gonna marry Gina? I like Gina!” Annie smiled wide. “Does this mean we’re having a wedding next year? I’ve never been to one! Can Becks and I be the bridesmaids?”

“Over my dead body,” Becky said, while staring at Bucky as if he was single-handedly responsible for every star’s death. Gina’s eyebrows shot up and he felt her hand on his thigh twitch. Becky noticed too. “I just hate ceremonies,” she explained, but Bucky had the distinct feeling that that was bullshit.

“I’ve never been too concerned about getting a ring on my finger anyway,” Gina shrugged and Bucky fell a little more in love with her for handling his overbearing family so well.

“Must be a socialist thing,” Bucky’s dad quipped, but it was well-intentioned and they all laughed. Well. Gina and his mother laughed, and Bucky tried, but didn’t get out more than a mediocre _ha_. Annie and Martha didn’t get it anyway, Becky was too deep in thought, and Steve was staring at his plate, intent on stabbing a reluctant pea. He was trying hard not to frown, but he wasn’t able to stop the corners of his mouth from tightening ever so slightly.

“So!” Bucky’s ma clapped her hands, “everyone ready for desert?”

The tension in Bucky’s body eased once they moved away from the topic. When his mother went to get the chocolate cake that she’d made, Bucky leaned in to whisper in Gina’s ear, “Sorry ‘bout that. My dad… he…” Bucky shrugged in explanation.

“‘S fine,” Gina smiled, squeezing his leg again, then, her eyes glinting wickedly, she slid her hand further up. “You can make up to me later.”

“Gina,” he hissed, glancing at Annie and Martha quickly. He would get hell from his ma if the kids noticed them getting handsy. Gina removed her hand, but not before she quite unsubtly brushed his crotch. Bucky had to fight very hard not to squirm.

Once they finished their desert, Becky dragged Bucky up by his forearm and made him help clean up the table, while others sat around patting their full stomachs and groaning about how they ate too much. No one cared that Bucky too was about to burst from food. They carried all the plates and empty dishes into the kitchen, while the others slowly trickled to the living room. From the noises he could make out, they were fighting about which board game they should play.

When Bucky came in with the last plate and dropped it unceremoniously into the sink, Becky closed the door, striding toward him until she was well in his personal space.

“What the hell are you thinking?” she hissed, her eyes were flashing with annoyance.

“What?” Bucky moved further back, until his lower back touched the counter. Becky stabbed him in the chest with her evil skinny finger.

“What. The hell. Are you thinking?” She continued stabbing him with every word. She was so young and so small, but so scary. Bucky sensed a theme in his life.

“Becks, I got no clue what you’re on about.” He pushed her finger away from his chest, rubbing at the tender spot.

“Gina? Tell me this is a joke?” Blessedly, she crossed her arms, saving Bucky’s chest from more harm.

“Joke? Why would it be a joke?” Bucky crossed his arms himself, feeling defensive. “Just ‘cause you don’t like her it don’t mean it’s a joke.”

“What?” It was Becky’s turn to be confused. “No, I like Gina. She’s great. Just...she really your girl? You weren’t joking on Thanksgiving?”

“No... Why would I be joking? Yes, she’s my girl!”

“What about Steve?” Becky looked at him accusingly. Bucky tightened his arms around himself.

“What about him?” he said slowly.

 _“What about him?”_ Her eyes narrowed as she huffed. “What happened? Did you break up?”

“Break up?” Bucky’s voice came out higher than he thought was possible. “What—we never— _what are you talking about?_ ”

“You and Steve… I thought… I was sure… I mean, I, you never said, and that made sense, ‘cause why would you? It wouldn’t go down well, but I thought you two… thought you were the real deal.”

“What?” Bucky was on the verge of spluttering. The real deal. Becky thought he and Steve were the real deal. The real. Deal. And she’d never said anything. Bucky felt the familiar panic bloom in his chest. “No. Me and Steve, we never—we were never—”

Becky laughed, humourless and dry. “Oh, come on. Then why did Steve look like he wanted to die all dinner?”

“He didn’ t—we never—” Now Bucky was really spluttering. “Jeez, Becks, we were never—”

“Never?” It sounded like a dare. “Never never?”

“I…” Bucky gulped, feeling like there was a whole meatball lodged in his throat. “...no.”

Becky’s jaw went hard and then slack before she spoke quietly. “I saw you.”

Bucky’s world dipped and dived, and he had to grab the counter behind him to steady himself. That was impossible.

“You didn’t.” He clung to those words the way he was clinging to the counter. As if they were his last hope of remaining standing. Becca must be joking. Or she saw it all wrong.

“Summer of thirty-three. Ma told me to go look for you ‘cause dinner was almost ready. Found you under the football stands. I was ten. I didn’t know what I was seeing just that I shouldn’t be seein’ it. Took me years to understand it, but when it finally clicked… it made sense. So much sense.”

She looked at him, eyes soft, not angry anymore, not even the least bit disappointed. An urge to run gripped Bucky. He wanted to storm out onto the street, and run and run and run, swallowing freezing air, letting it turn to frost inside his lungs, while the cold wind stung the skin on his face.

“You didn’t—you saw wrong.” Bucky knew she didn’t see anything wrong. He remembered that day like it was yesterday.

“I saw it right.” It was final. Her tone brooked no argument. “I thought… when you two moved in together… I thought that was it. I knew you’d never tell us, but I thought, at least they’re happy there. Living their life. I might be young, but I’m not dumb. I know there’s people like that.”

“It wasn’t—that’s not why we moved.” The metal of the sink that Bucky was gripping soothed his nerves a little. “It’s just—it was a foolish thing, okay? Back then.” A foolish thing that never could fulfill the promise of a happy life Becky was on about. “It’s nothing. Now.” Bucky hoped his tone, too, brooked no argument. He couldn’t quite meet Becky’s eyes when he said it, though. He stared at her chin.

“God, you’re an idiot.”

When Bucky didn’t say anything, she laid her hand on his arm. He shrugged it away.

“Don’t—just don’t meddle, Becks.” He turned around, hoping this would give her clear indication that the conversation was finished. He was shaken. His hand trembled when he opened the pipe and set to doing the dishes.

“When you stop being an idiot,” Becky said to his back.

Bucky froze in place. “I meant it, Becky.” His voice was harder this time, colder. “Don’t meddle.”

“Fine.” She came to stand beside him, kitchen towel in hand. This was how they’d always done the dishes when they were younger. Bucky did the nasty sponging and rinsing and Becky dried them off with a towel. When Bucky handed her the first plate to dry, Becky said softly, “Just so you know, I wouldn’t care.”

Bucky didn’t acknowledge it in any way, bar an involuntary quiver of his hand. He dipped his fingers back into the soapy water and continued washing up. They silently worked until all the dishes were back in their place in the cupboard, then headed to the noisy living room where Annie, Martha, Steve, and Ma were playing cards. In the other corner of the room, Gina was writing something on a piece of paper and showing it to George.

Bucky’s ma cocked her head in their direction when they came in. “Did you two fight over the dishes again?”

Bucky took the offered excuse for the sounds of their raised voices they must have heard. He rolled his eyes theatrically. “Well, I don’t know why I always have to do the nasty business and she gets to stand there with a towel barely doing any work.”

“You know that touching soggy food makes me want to vomit!” Becky sounded appropriately indignant, playing along. Bucky was grateful.

“Well, I don’t love it either!” Bucky glared at her but he was smiling. This was a practiced argument. They sometimes staged it for the fun of it.

“She does it when you’re not here, you know?” Annie betrayed her sister without blinking. “Hasn’t vomited once.”

“You liar!” Bucky pushed her sideways. His shove was a little bit too forceful and he had to catch her before she fell right into the Christmas tree. Annie and Martha giggled, and even Steve cracked a warm smile. Bucky shot one back.

“What are you two doing?” Bucky interrupted Gina and George’s intense conversation.

“Oh,” Gina laughed a little, “I’m teaching your dad a socialist song. I think my uncle’s made an impression on him. Might be you’re switching sides soon.”

“Not a chance,” George replied. “Gina’s been teaching me a song Gio keeps singing when he gets drunk. It’s catchy but he’s always too far gone to teach me the lyrics.”

Bucky shook his head. He wasn’t looking forward to hearing him sing. George Barnes was a notoriously bad singer who unfortunately really, really loved to sing. He was so bad that even the priest at their church had stepped up to him one day after mass and asked him if he could maybe not participate quite as vigorously when the choir sang.

Bucky went to sit on the floor next to Steve. His ma and Martha were on the couch leaning over the coffee table, and Annie and Steve were on the floor on the other side. They were playing Rummy. Becky flopped down onto the bit of free space next to Annie, her eyes on Bucky’s, pleading. He immediately knew what she was asking.

“No, Becks. No way.”

“Pleaaase!”

“No.”

“Bucky,” his mother always had to get involved in their arguments, “do play one round with her.”

“I don’t want to! She always wins!” He saw Gina looking inquisitively in their direction. Bucky grimaced and told her, “Chess.”

“You’re the only one who doesn’t get beaten in ten minutes,” his ma supplied as if that was anything to be proud of. Steve laughed. He knew how much Bucky hated losing at chess. He’d always been the best at it until Becky learned how to play.

“Come on, Buck,” he elbowed him in the ribs. “It’s been a while since I saw you lose.”

“For a reason,” Bucky huffed.

“Come on. Provide us with some entertainment. Personally, I really loved that time where you swept the board out of rage after she checkmated you with a pawn.” Steve pretended to gaze wistfully into the distance at the memory.

“I was!— _ugh_.” Bucky was too old.

“Seventeen. You were seventeen,” Becky reminded him gleefully.

“Too old. _Way_ too old,” Steve added, making Bucky groan again.

“Come ooon, Bucky!” she pleaded again. “You’re the only one who at least puts up a fight.”

“Yeah, okay, fine. Get the board and whoop my ass, it’s not like I ain’t used to it.” Bucky conceded after some groaning and eye-rolling.

While they played, Annie was accused of cheating at cards by no one but her own mother. It evolved into a heated argument. On the other side of the room, George and Gina had started singing. Neither of them had a voice to be proud of, but George was by far the worse of the two.

“Avanti o popolo, alla riscossa, bandiera rossa, bandiera rossa,” they sang slowly, Gina correcting his pronunciation, while George’s face was stuck in the piece of paper with the text. “Bandiera rossa la trionferà, bandiera rossa la trionferà, bandiera rossa la trionferà, evviva il socialismo e la libertà!”

There were only two words Bucky understood. Socialism and liberty. He couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous a sight they made. Gina waving her hands in true Italian style and his dad’s booming, but discordant voice, echoing around the room. He blamed it on them for losing the chess game, even though he’d had no hope of winning from the start.

He’d held on for a shaky twenty-three minutes—he knew because he watched the clock—before Becks mercilessly ate his queen and checkmated him. He didn’t swipe the board, merely sighed and told her they were playing cards for the rest of the evening. She nodded, but her expression was a little bit too self-satisfied for Bucky’s liking. He stuck his tongue out at her because he was mature like that.

The evening passed quickly and when it was well past midnight, Winnifred shooed Annie, Martha, and Becky to bed. After some deliberation, Bucky, Gina, and Steve stayed too—Bucky and Gina took Bucky’s old bed and Steve took the couch. The weather outside was too dire and the warmth of the apartment too cozy to walk back home. In the morning, they unwrapped the presents, which were nothing special, but they put smiles on their faces and that was enough for Bucky. He loved his family.

Gina had to run home after breakfast because she’d promised her little brother that she’d spend Christmas morning there. With a quick wet kiss to Bucky’s lips and a cheery wave she dashed out, wrapped tightly in a scarf Bucky’s ma knitted and a hat Annie insisted on giving to her—it was orange and green and it had a giant puffy pom pom on top of it. It was very obviously a children’s hat. Gina had pushed it over her dark messy curls with a big smile and a wink then slipped out the door.

George’s hand dropped onto Bucky’s shoulder from behind when she was gone. He said none too quietly, “Gina’s a good girl, James. I’m proud of you. I did worry, I ain’t gonna lie, but you picked a stellar one.”

Warmth pooled in Bucky’s stomach spreading through his veins like a pleasant sweet liquid. He hated that his father’s sparse words could have such an impact on him, but he also couldn’t help feeling proud at finally, finally doing something right.

“Thanks, dad,” he said, turning. His smile froze on his face when he saw Steve’s eyes on him. Steve looked away quickly, but too late for Bucky not to notice the flash of sadness on his face.

Once Christmas was over, New Year’s was only around the corner, but Bucky couldn’t find it in himself to look forward to it. A heavy atmosphere hung above his and Steve’s apartment after the Christmas holidays, as if the reality of their quiet life was about to shatter any moment now. And maybe it would. Bucky thought back to Annie’s excited question about the possibility of a forthcoming wedding. She said next summer. Next summer was so close. Was half a year all they had left? Bucky hadn’t really—god he was stupid—he hadn’t really _thought_ about what it all meant. He hadn’t—and goddamnit he really was a dimwit—he hadn’t really thought he would have to leave Steve behind.

Gina told him her family insisted she come celebrate New Year’s with them and their family in Boston, so Bucky asked Steve what he wanted to do. Go out to Coney Island? Watch the fireworks? Go dancing? Get fudge-drunk?

“Buck, I don’t mean to be a downer, but I really don’t feel like going anywhere. You know where your pals from the docks will be, go and join ‘em, I won’t mind,” Steve said on New Year’s Eve, without lifting his head from the drawing he was working on at the kitchen table. It wasn’t a commission; this was one Steve did for fun, though his ‘fun’ drawings didn’t look all that fun lately. The colors had gotten darker, the shapes sharper, and the expressions more somber.

“Nah, Imma stay in with you.” The truth was that all Bucky could think about was that this might well be the last New Year he and Steve would spend together. It terrified him. The thought of never spending holidays alone with Steve again. The thought of Steve not being the first person he saw when he woke up and the last person he saw before he went to sleep. It made his heart hurt an awful something.

Bucky walked to the radio, turning it on. At least there would be some cheer in the room with the vivacious sound of trumpets in the background. Not knowing what to do with himself, he went to the bedroom to grab a book. He was currently reading _The Sorrows of Young Werther_ by the German writer Goethe. He wasn’t enjoying it at all, if he were honest. In fact, he’d go as far as to say it was a goddamn disgrace that this book had ever become famous. The main character was terribly whiny and horribly useless, and with every single page Bucky wanted to slap him more. Sadly, he’d read all the other books he’d borrowed from the bookshop already, so he suffered through the novel like young Werther suffered through life. Which was with far more whining and self-pity than needed.

He plopped down into the chair at the other side of the table and flipped to the fifty-third page where he left off the day before. As predicted, Bucky couldn’t quite get over the fact he hated the book, so his eyes kept flicking towards Steve’s drawing. It was a shockingly realistic depiction of Brooklyn on a rainy night. Men walking down the street, wearing hats with wide rims to keep the rain out of their eyes, and the women holding their umbrellas tightly while water splashed around their ankles.

“That’s really good,” Bucky told Steve, gesturing at the drawing with the book in his hand.

“Thanks.” Steve glanced up, giving a small appreciative smile.

“You’ve gotten real good at art. You gotta be one of the best at art school.” It was true, Steve really _had_ gotten really good at it. He was good before, but he was excellent now. Brilliant.

“Ehh, not really.” Steve shrugged, always so modest. The way he was avoiding Bucky’s eyes told him Bucky was right.

“Stop being so damn modest,” Bucky berated him. “I can tell from the way you suddenly don’t know where to look that you actually are one of the best.”

Finally, Steve lifted his head, meeting Bucky full on. His bottom lip had that stubborn pout to it that Bucky always wanted to run his thumb over. “Not _one of_. I _am_ the best.”

Bucky laughed. “Now you’re talking! Always knew you’d be one of the greats.”

“I’m not one of the greats yet, Buck. I’m just the best in my class. And I hate saying that.” He grimaced to underline his point.

“Ehh,” Bucky shrugged and waved his arms as if Steve being the best in class at a moderately good art school in Brooklyn was all the proof he needed about his worldwide greatness. “By the way, this book is shit.”

“I know. You’ve told me this at least fifty times and you’ve only been reading it for two days,” Steve pointed out.

“Well, if you’ve wondered, I’ve advanced four pages, and it’s still shit.”

“Stop reading it then, why don’t ya?” Steve asked, as if Bucky hadn’t told him the same response every time Steve suggested Bucky stop reading a bad book.

“How am I gonna explain exactly what I hated if I don’t read it all?” Was that so hard to understand? Bucky had to know how bad it was! Had to know _exactly_ how bad it was.

“I’d say you have a pretty good idea about what you hate, seeing how you keep mentioning it.” Fine. Sometimes Steve had a point too.

“But what if there are more things to hate? How can I miss up on this opportunity? There is a hate scale, Steve. I need to read it all to be able to correctly sort it. Right now it’s swinging between Would Rather Drink Gasoline and Would Rather Kiss Louise.”

Steve’s brow wrinkled. “So which is worse?”

“Kissing Louise, obviously. That one’s almost at the top of the hate scale.” Bucky nodded sagely as if he were some sort of scholar sorting the animal species into the taxonomic tree.

Steve blinked at him and slowly shook his head. “You’re so damn weird.”

Whenever Steve thought Bucky had done or said something really ridiculous but also really endearing, he gave Bucky this expression. It was slow and easy, and no matter how hard Steve tried to stop it, he couldn’t. These days, however, the fondness of Steve’s smile and the warm glow of his eyes that Bucky had so selfishly gotten used to was tinted with a hint of sadness. It made something inside Bucky crumble, knowing he had put the sadness there.

Steve bent over his drawing again and set to work on a rain-splattered shop window. His shoulders were slightly more hunched than before. Bucky turned back to his book. He couldn’t concentrate, though. He read a sentence then glanced at Steve, bent his head back down to the words on the page having already forgotten the last thing he’d read. When he went over the same sentence for the third time, he slammed the book shut.

“Let’s dance. It would be a shame not to dance on New Year’s Eve.” He got up and turned the sound of the radio up. He didn’t know the song, but it was fast and joyful. Exactly what they needed.

“I’m not a dame who you need to take dancing, Buck,” Steve practically sighed. He was used to sighing at Bucky’s antics. It had become his automatic response.

“Fine. I’ll be the dame.” Bucky touched the back of his hand to his forehead as if he was about to faint. “And a swell fella like yourself has gotta take the only dame in the room dancing at least for one song.”

“Nope.”

“Come on, Steve! Look!” Bucky ran to their bedroom, an action that only required two large paces, ripped the white sheet off their bed and wrapped it around his torso. He peeked seductively around the partition wall, batting his eyelashes at Steve. “I even put on my best dress,” he practically purred.

Steve snorted. The fond expression was back again but the sadness less apparent. Whether that was because Steve had forgotten about it or because he hid it better, Bucky didn’t want to know. Bucky grabbed Steve by his forearm, dragging him up. “I know the sticks you call your legs are pretty wobbly, but I think you can manage a round of swing.”

Bucky took Steve’s hands in his and started moving. They’d done this before; it wasn’t anything new. He was familiar with Steve’s uncertain legs, familiar with the way he kept wanting to lead even though he didn’t know how. Bucky twirled under Steve’s hand, bending awkwardly at the back. His ‘dress’ got caught in the chair almost knocking it over.

“Your best dress is kinda impractical,” Steve told him, his breaths coming slightly faster.

“Ahh, yes,” Bucky let go of Steve’s left hand to lift the sheet a little, “but it makes me feel so beautiful.”

Steve laughed, burying his head into Bucky’s shoulder. “God, you’re so stupid,” he mumbled, then stepped back, twirling Bucky again. They continued dancing in the small space their kitchen allowed them until the song slowed down. On the final 0note, Bucky dipped Steve backwards, making him yelp when he almost lost his footing, and crashed them both to the floor. He straightened up quickly, pulling Steve up with him, breathless and grinning.

They stood there staring at each other, their grins slowly waning as the notes of a new song started on the radio. Bucky knew this one. It was one of his favorite songs. One of Steve’s hands was on his waist, one on his shoulder. Bucky mirrored his pose perfectly. They were both holding each other tight, unwilling to let go.

“One more dance?” Bucky asked, dreading the feeling it might be their last one.

The song flowed, the piano, the trumpets and the saxophones creating a falsely cheerful background sound. Bucky moved, pulling Steve with him. He held him closer than he would have dared moments before, but his hands were so desperate and so, so heavy. Steve went along with it, clutching at the white fabric on Bucky’s lower back. They weren’t looking at each other, pressed as they were chest to chest, their bodies aligning just as easily as they used to, seemingly unable to forget how.

The singer started singing and Bucky couldn’t stop himself from singing along. He’d sung this song so many times, only now he was realizing who he’d been singing it to all this time.

“You are the promised kiss of springtime that makes the lonely winter seem long,” he muttered into Steve’s hair. _How will he ever be able to let this go?_   “You are the breathless hush of evening that trembles on the brink of a lovely song.” _How will he ever let Steve go?_ “You are the angel glow that lights a star, the dearest things I know are what you are.”

His voice broke, his throat suddenly too clogged to go on. The woman’s voice from the radio went on, not caring about Bucky’s moment.

_Some day my happy arms will hold you and some day I'll know that moment divine when all the things you are, are mine._

Steve’s hand on Bucky’s back twitched and his fingers dug in painfully. Bucky realized there was wetness on his neck where Steve’s face was pressed into it. Bucky buried his face into Steve’s hair. His vision was blurry too. After a while, when the music had faded and the radio host had started speaking, Steve slowly pulled back. He didn’t let go, but he wasn’t looking at Bucky either.

“Steve,” Bucky said softly. Steve looked up, eyes red and eyelashes wet, but not crying. Bucky cupped his face with his hand, and, without thinking, ran his thumb over Steve’s full pink lips. “I’m sorry,” he kept looking at Steve’s mouth because he wasn’t quite sure he could face the reality reflected in Steve’s eyes. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

_Sorry for everything I said, everything I did, but most of all sorry for everything I didn’t say and didn’t do. Sorry for all I took, but most of all sorry for all that I didn’t give._

He didn’t know when Steve’s fingers had wrapped around his collar, but they firmed their grip, and Steve crashed their lips together in a hard, bitter kiss. A quick press of mouths that only lasted a second in real life, but would last forever in Bucky’s memories. Steve let go too quickly, burying his face into Bucky’s neck one more time.

“Goddammit, Buck,” Steve whispered on a shaky, high-pitched breath, “God-fucking-dammit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, hi, did I say things get better in this chapter? Whoops? Maybe in the next one? Give me comments and maybe I'll give you more happiness lol
> 
> You can reblog [**this masterpost**](https://synonym-for-life.tumblr.com/post/186452579021/that-moment-divine-e-61k-completed-s-okay) if you like the fic and want to support your friendly neighborhood writer.


	5. The Dreams that I Dare to Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky finally confronts his feelings!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter (as well as the lyrics mentioned in one of the scenes) comes from arguably one of the most famous songs of all time: [_Somewhere Over the Rainbow_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSZxmZmBfnU), sung here by Judy Garland. Garland first recorded the song in October 1938, but the first studio recording was in September 1939. Our boys are in the first month of 1940, so I don't know if the song would have become popular by then, but let's pretend it did. Btw the movie _The Wizard of Oz_ came out in August 1939. [**Entire playlist here.**](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH6I_O9zBr5R8ilJ6XKvuTaEiD4bRZg5O)
> 
> The painting Bucky is describing in one of the scenes doesn't actually exist. However, its description was based on [this beautiful photograph](http://wanderlusteurope.tumblr.com/post/182675945482/pretty-village-norway) I saw on Tumblr that took my breath away.

Bucky was at Gina’s place. Physically. Physically he was at Gina’s place. Mentally, he was miles away. He didn’t even know what he was doing. They had been cooking...yes, they were still cooking. There was a knife in his hand and a cutting board with a tomato on top in front of him, and he was cutting it up. The board took up way too much space. Part of it was even hanging over the counter, crowded from all sides by pots and ingredients.

“Bucky,” Gina called. He heard her, but he couldn’t tear his attention away from the tomato.

“Bucky,” Gina said again, louder. She placed her hand on Bucky’s forearm, stopping the repetitive movement he’d been making with his arm. For a moment Bucky wondered why, but then his eyes focused on the mess he was making. He was massacring the tomato rather than cutting it up. “What did that poor tomato do to you?”

He continued staring at the poor vegetable, before common sense finally penetrated his thick skull. He raised his head. Gina’s eyes were bright, even trying to be teasing, but he could see the worry underneath. He knew he’d been acting strange ever since he came over to hers, but he couldn’t help it.

“Nothin’.” Bucky shook his head, breaking out of the haze. “Gotta show the vegetable who the boss in the kitchen is.” Bucky tried for a blinding smile, the kind that showed all his teeth, tightened his cheeks, and crinkled his eyes.

“Bucky,” Gina prompted, squeezing his arm. “What’s wrong?”

The thing was, nothing was really wrong. His life was going exactly as Bucky had imagined. His life had never before gone to plan, but now that it was, instead of feeling happy, he felt...empty.

“Noth —”

“If you say nothing, Imma use that knife as information extraction tactics.” She was trying to make light of the situation. Neither of them was good at talking about serious stuff...well...seriously. Bucky let his expression form into mock outrage as if offended that she would threaten him like that. Gina smiled but plowed on, not letting it go. “Really, though. Don’t say it’s nothing. Not when you’re caught up in your head like that. You don’t gotta tell me, but don’t say it’s nothing when I see it ain’t true.”

Bucky focused his gaze back on the tomato, more a pulp now than anything resembling a vegetable, and shook his head. All he’d been able to think about these past three days was the way Steve’s fingers clutched the fabric of the sheet at Bucky’s lower back when they danced. His mind kept jumping between their breathless laughter and Steve’s harsh kiss at the end. But more than anything it was the broken words Steve had whispered into Bucky’s neck that haunted him. Bucky had been one step away from shattering in Steve’s arms, one step away from kissing him again, this time soft and yearning, and maybe a bit wet from tears that had been threatening to fall. He thought about how he wanted to kiss and kiss and kiss Steve until Bucky was nothing but broken pieces in Steve’s arms, held in place by Steve’s sheer refusal to let Bucky’s soul scatter across the kitchen tile.

“Me and Steve…” What was he gonna say? She deserved some kind of an explanation. “We had a fight.”

It wasn’t a fight. It was the opposite of a fight. It felt like giving up. Like a cowardly retreat.

“I thought you two never fought?” Gina looked genuinely confused. That pulled Bucky out of his thoughts enough to snort.

“Where’d you get that one?” His brain was finally unfogging, random, crystalized thoughts pulling through. He laughed again at the irony. “Me and Steve fight all the time.”

“You do?” Gina frowned. “I didn’t get that impression.”

“You didn’t spend enough time with us yet. We fight all the time.” Bucky placed the knife on the counter, realizing that he was gesticulating a bit too wildly to be safe. “He’s the most annoying person you’ve ever met. Always thinks he’s right, too. Mind, he is right most of the time, but still, the guy hasn’t let me catch a break in twenty years.”

"What did you fight about this time?” Gina stopped Bucky’s rant with her question.

“Oh, you know, nothing much.” The anxiety that had retreated during his laughter was back. Bucky hoped he didn’t look as shifty as he felt. “He was —”

He hesitated. He couldn’t say Steve had been an idiot, it wouldn’t be fair to him. Not when Bucky was worse than horseshit on the sole of a beggar’s shoe for hurting Steve like that. Because he _had_ hurt him. It should have been obvious to him before New Year’s Eve, but it was the first time he truly saw it.

“Was my fault,” Bucky admitted. It felt good, telling it like it was. “I was — just being dumb, I guess.”

He’d been dumb for the whole past year. Maybe longer.

Gina waited for a few seconds, probably expecting Bucky to say more. When he didn’t, she squeezed his forearm lightly. “Well, in any case, I’m sorry.”

Gina feeling sorry for him made him feel far worse than horseshit. At least horseshit was a fertilizer. It helped things grow. Horseshit smelled and was generally unpleasant, but in the end it did good things. Bucky was more like that pesticide that killed everything living, leaving behind a burnt patch where nothing would grow for years.

“Thanks,” he replied softly, looking into her sweet brown eyes.

“Don’t go cutting your fingers off, eh?” She smiled and, with a pinch and a nod, redirected his attention to the unchopped onion on the counter.

Bucky sighed. “Do I really need ten of them anyway?”

“Good point.” Gina threw him a wicked look. “You only need two to please me.”

Bucky huffed a laugh, raising his tomato-splattered hand towards her face, wiggling his fingers. Gina jumped away with a disgusted yelp when a few slimy tomato seeds started flying. They got back to work after that, the atmosphere lighter. Bucky’s mind was still wrapped in on itself, but he was able to think more clearly. Gina was so good for him. He turned his head, throwing her a grateful smile when their eyes met. She was the best woman he’d ever met. She didn’t deserve a man who kept thinking about someone else. Would he ever be able to stop? Would he ever be able to love her the way she deserved?

 

<<>>

 

After New Year’s Eve, Steve started avoiding Bucky as much as one could avoid someone who lived in the same apartment and shared the same bed. If Bucky was completely honest, he might have been doing the same. He had no idea what to do. Every time he looked at Steve the thoughts of “I hurt him” overtook his brain, and the feeling of self-hatred got so unbearable that he wanted to throw himself out of the window. His mind kept stumbling over that fact, over and over again, only to be blocked whenever the question of _why_ arose. Why was Steve so hurt? He’d agreed, he’d agreed that it didn’t mean — that they couldn’t —

_It hurt him because it was more than — It hurt him because it wasn’t just — It hurt him because he —_

For the first time, Bucky made a completely conscious decision to visit Billy. It was a weekday, but Mrs. Green didn’t need him at the bookshop that day, so he stayed at home. Steve had gone out to get some more art supplies. New commissions had come in despite the holidays ending, and he was running out of everything.

Bucky, though thoroughly enjoying his day off, needed to get out of the building, talk to someone sane who wasn’t involved in the mess that was his life. It took a long time for the train to arrive. Snow had started falling and the city, along with everything in nature, got emptier and slower. When he got out at the station in Brooklyn Heights, there were already a solid couple inches of snow on the ground. His shoes made a pleasant squeaking noise as he walked. He’d never really loved snow, but he couldn’t deny there was a sentimental sort of beauty in the large lazy flakes falling from the grey clouds ahead.

Before entering Billy’s shop, he dried off his shoes and dusted off the snow on his shoulders and hat. When he entered, Billy was nowhere in sight, but there was soft Christmas music playing in the background.

“Hey!” Bucky called into the shop. He didn’t know whether to sit or stand, still not entirely comfortable with the place.

Billy’s head poked out from behind the office door. “Oh, hello!” He walked out, a dirty cloth in hand. “I’ve been wondering when you’d come round again.”

Another head poked from behind the door.

“Good morning,” the man greeted and nodded. He was black, about Billy’s age. His beard had grey streaks in it, as did his frizzy hair. He had a pleasant, if inquisitive smile on his face.

“Oh, this is Bucky,” Billy told him, seeing the unvoiced inquiry on the man’s face. “You know, I’ve told you about him. He visits sometimes.”

Bucky felt distinctly out of place at this piece of news. Billy’d been telling people about him? The man’s eyes landed on his and his face lit up in recognition. “Ah, yes, of course.” He nodded, taking the dirty towel from Billy’s hands. “Listen, I’ll be upstairs. We’ll finish cleaning up later. You two have a pleasant chat.”

With a flash of straight white teeth and a cheery wave the man was out of sight.

“You know Christmas is over right?” Bucky twitched his head in the direction of the gramophone.

“My friend,” Billy said, motioning to the sidewalk outside, “look outta the window and tell me this isn’t the perfect music for the weather.”

Bucky did as told despite having been outside mere minutes ago, experiencing the weather first hand. The snow covered the entire sidewalk, only a smattering of footprints breaking the perfect white cover. Three gramophones of various sizes stood in the shop window, framed by records on either side. For the first time, he was able to appreciate just how magical Billy’s shop was. There were even some Christmas decorations left that he hadn’t noticed the last time he was there. A few paper stars and a tiny Christmas tree in the far away corner.

“It’s...kinda nice, yeah,” Bucky conceded.

“Always a smooth talker,” Billy teased, chuckling. “Oh,” he clapped his hands, “I bought coffee, by the way! Just for you, ‘cause I know you got something against my tea.”

“I don’t have nothing against your tea.” Bucky said out of politeness. Billy threw him a withering look. “Okay, fair. Can’t say it makes my mouth water. Thanks. Thanks for...thinking of me, I guess. ”

Bucky’s throat felt tight at the unexpected kindness. Billy didn’t have to be this nice to him. Bucky had sure behaved weirdly every time he’d been there.

“I take it you won’t say no to a cup?” Billy waved the thanks away. “I even got some gingerbread cookies left. Terrance made some two days ago and I hid them. Otherwise he eats them all in one sitting.”

Most of the words came out muted as Billy had already dived back into the small office space.

“Billy,” Bucky raised his voice so that Billy could hear him. “Was that? Who was that?”

Bucky hoped Billy would know who he meant, because he didn’t think he would be able to voice the question any other way.

“Terrance?” There was confusion in Billy’s voice. Mugs clanked together and a spoon fell to the floor. Billy cursed before replying. “I never told you ‘bout him? Terrance is my fella.” His head poked out again, only to flash him a quick smile. “Makes the best gingerbread cookies in the world. Promise on Jesus.”

He was gone just as quickly as he’d appeared, the smell of fresh coffee soon wafting in Bucky’s direction. It smelled so much better than tea.

“You never told me you had a fella,” Bucky reminded him. Though, to be fair, Bucky’d never really asked Billy about his life.

“How unfair of me. I wouldn’t be here if not for him. He takes such good care of me and the shop. I’d have probably run it into the ground if he didn’t take over the finances, bless him.” Billy appeared with two cups in his hands. He handed one to Bucky, the delicious smell of freshly brewed coffee filling Bucky’s nostrils. “I’m a bit of a dreamer, see.”

Bucky nodded because he didn’t know what else to do. What was he supposed to say when all he could feel was bitter hope mixed with searing jealousy rising inside of him. People had that. Men had that. It was _possible_. Billy sat down, this time on a cardboard box because the counter was too cluttered. Bucky took his cue and sat on one of the crates next to him.

“So what’s troubling you this time?” Billy raised his cup, motioning for Bucky to make them meet in an ironic toast.

“What, you think I only come when I’m feeling blue?” Bucky pouted. “Maybe I’m just visiting my new pal.”

Billy smiled, the wrinkles around his eyes and the slight scruff he was wearing that day making him look like a benevolent Santa Claus. “I’ll believe that when you don’t come in looking like a kicked puppy.”

“I don’t —” Bucky started to say because looking like a kicked puppy was always more of Steve’s thing, his baby blues all big and regretful, while he still managed to maintain that reluctant pout, like a dog who had stolen a cake and was terribly sorry for it but would have done it again in a heartbeat given the chance.

Billy threw him a look, effectively shutting off his protest. Fine. Bucky really did feel like a kicked puppy, anyway. When Billy’s expectant silence clued him in that he was waiting for Bucky to spill it, Bucky sighed.

“I think I hurt him, Billy.” Bucky looked down into the black liquid, sloshing slightly up the sides because his hands were trembling. “I didn’t think I would, ya know. Steve’s always been the sane one when it came to matters of the heart. It was always me who went crazy, always me who lost his marbles whenever I was sweet on someone.”

He shrugged. Maybe being crazy for someone wasn’t quite the same thing he and Steve had. Steve made him crazy, yes, but in a whole different way than a pretty mouth did. Steve made him crazy in all the possible ways.

“I thought he was fine with it, me and Gina. Thought he understood this was best for both of us. And worst of all, he probably did get it. ‘S just —” Bucky’s mind drifted back to New Year’s Eve again, to the desperate clutch of Steve’s fingers, to the wetness he’d felt on his neck when Steve had buried his head in it. “I think I hurt him. I think I hurt him bad.”

The hollow pit in Bucky’s stomach deepened, an ugly abyss of worthlessness. Billy’s hand landed on his forearm and Bucky almost jumped, so deep in his thoughts that he’d momentarily forgotten Billy was there. He met Billy’s kind eyes.

“Bucky, have you ever thought about how Steve ain’t the only one who’s hurting?” Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together. By extension he supposed he was also hurting Gina, but Gina didn’t know anything about it… Billy was waiting on him to say something, but Bucky’s head was deceptively empty, thoughts fleeing, as if on purpose, leaving behind a dark mist.

“Bucky,” Billy called to his attention again when Bucky didn’t say anything. “ _You’re_ hurting too.”

Bucky stared at Billy, at his sad smile, at his warm eyes, at the _understanding_ he found there, and felt his hands start to shake. Violently, uncontrollably. His teeth clenched and his chest constricted, but none of it truly registered because the true wreckage was happening inside him. Billy squeezed his arm again, trying to ground him, but that small act of kindness was too much, and the dam Bucky had so carefully built around his heart crumbled, so suddenly and surely as if it’d never been there. He felt his eyes well up, blurring his vision, emotions overflowing, as if the body was too full to contain them and they had to find a way out somehow. He heard a sound, something between a sniff and a whimper coming from his throat, right before the tears started to flow, something inside ripping, pain flooding his heart, his lungs, his throat until he could no longer breathe. Someone took the mug from his hands and wrapped their arms around his shivering body and for the first time in a year, perhaps for the first time in seven years, Bucky let himself feel the hurt that had been festering inside him.

The rage, the despair, the unfairness of it all, the unbearable sadness, the shattered dreams, the hidden wishes of the heart, they all spilled forth in a storm of unbearable pain as he sobbed into Billy’s arms.

Billy was talking. Soothing him with gentle words and even gentler rubs on his back and Bucky clung to him, a lifeboat on a sinking ship.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” were the first words that penetrated into Bucky’s mind. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” on repeat.

Bucky only sobbed harder, crumpled in on himself in Billy’s lap. “Fuck,” he said thickly, his throat clogged with phlegm, his mouth full of his own salty tears. “Jesus fucking fuck.”

“I know. Jesus fucking fuck, indeed,” Billy said, a trace of a smile in his voice. Bucky laughed. He didn’t know why he found Billy repeating it funny, but he did. His laughter came out as a mellow, wet _ha_ but it gave him the strength to wipe his face. He stole a few more moments being coddled before extricating himself out of Billy’s arms slowly.

Billy’s hand stayed on his shoulder, a link to the present. Bucky had never thought he’d ever be this grateful of a simple touch. He turned his head away, hiding his face as if Billy hadn’t already seen his weakest moment. He wiped at his face with his sleeve, knowing that he’d get snot on it, but unable to muster up the will to care.

“Look at me. Went off like a sprinkler on a rich house lawn,” Bucky tried making his voice light. It came out croaky.

“Sorry, son, but that was closer to a busted fire hydrant,” Billy said good-naturedly. Bucky snorted, and softly punched him in the leg.

“What am I gonna do?” he asked softly after a moment of silence. He prayed that Billy was gonna give him an answer, a crystal-clear plan that would marvelously unravel the jumble inside him.

“You’re gonna have to figure that one out yourself. But I think you already know that.” Billy squeezed his shoulder for the last time and released him. “I can tell you this though: you gotta let go of this self-flagellation you’ve got going on there. You’re so wrapped up in your head, you’ve forgotten there’s a whole world out there. Eventually you’ve gotta let go of the pain, yours and his.”

Billy reached for the mug and pushed it into Bucky’s hands, his eyes soft but stern. “Remember there’s more to you both than this. Remember that this one thing doesn’t define you. Remember how to be a person and respect your friend enough to let him be one too. You might have hurt him, but _hurt_ is not all he is.”

Bucky worried his lip, taking the words in. Slowly, he nodded, a smile spreading across his blotchy red face. “So basically, you’re tellin’ me in real fancy words to get my head out of my ass?”

Billy chuckled, clapping him on the shoulder. “Now you’re getting it.” A moment of silence wrapped itself around them, before Billy broke it with a jolt followed by a breathy “Oh!”

Bucky whipped his head in the direction of the door. He hoped no one had come in and witnessed his breakdown. No one was there.

“I forgot the gingerbread cookies!” Billy exclaimed, getting up quickly.

He disappeared from sight. Bucky exhaled. Jeez, this man was jumpy. He heard some bustling, cans and plates being pulled aside, until a loud _Aha!_ let him know Billy had found his hidden stash of cookies. After some more clattering, Billy appeared with a plate, and shoved it at Bucky.

“You gotta eat them all. The sooner they’re gone the lesser the chance Terrance will turn the office up on its head looking for them. I got a feeling he’s onto me.” Billy popped a whole cookie into his mouth and drained it down with tea after only a couple of bites.

“Why don’t you just let him eat ‘em then?” Bucky said around a cookie.

“You kidding? I bet he’s making a new batch right now. ‘S not good for your heart, sugar. If I didn’t hide them, he’d have died ten times over by now.” Billy smiles, shrugging. “You’re not the only one with a pal with poor self-control.”

Bucky laughed. He fucking _wished_ Steve had poor self-control when it came to cookies instead of fist fights.

 

<<>>

 

“Hey,” Bucky greeted when he came home. He’d helped Billy and Terrance clean the shop. They even made him say yes to lunch. It was nice, spending time with them. Terrance was a riot, Bucky had learned. Funniest guy he’d ever met.

Bucky took off his coat, shuffling further into the kitchen. For a change Steve wasn’t hunched over the table drawing. He stood by the stove cooking. Bucky peered into the pot, grimacing. Plain old cornmeal. Steve shrugged when he saw Bucky’s expression as if to say “you know I can’t cook for shit.” If Bucky was a bad cook, Steve was a fucking tragedy. Bucky looked into the softly bubbling yellow slush sighing sadly. Maybe if they added the few strips of bacon they had left, it would pass for a decent meal.

For the first time in days, Bucky looked at Steve properly. He looked...fine. Like he always looked in winter. A bit pale, a bit cold, his nose slightly red as if he was perpetually on the verge of a cold. Prettier than the prettiest Holywood dame, if Bucky had any say in it.

But he also looked — well, he looked all fucked up inside.

Bucky swallowed. He wondered if he too looked like that.

Steve shifted on his feet and Bucky turned his eyes away. Bucky wondered if Steve regretted kissing him on New Years Eve. Did Steve think Bucky would pity him for it? For showing that he cared? Did he think he’d shown a weakness? Steve hated showing weakness.

Bucky would have laughed at the irony, if it wouldn’t make him look like a lunatic, laughing hoarsely into their quiet cold room. If Steve was embarrassed for getting a bit teary eyed on his best friend’s shoulder, what could Bucky say after he’d sobbed like a baby into an old man’s lap. It was pretty clear to him that he won the embarrassment contest with an enormous lead.

 _You might have hurt him, but hurt is not all he is_ , Billy had said. Getting his head out of his ass might be a process, but Bucky could start by at least trying to be the friend he’d once been.

“I brought you something,” he said with a smile, moving away from the stove, giving Steve space. He reached into the inside pocket of his coat that he’d draped over the chair after he came in. As soon as he wrangled the folded comic book out of it, he whacked Steve on the head with it.

Steve gave an indignant yelp and snatched the comic from Bucky’s hand. It had a garishly yellow cover, with a red title BATMAN splattered across the top.

“Oh!” Steve’s face slowly lit up. Bucky didn’t know which god to thank that he was still able to put a smile on Steve’s face, so he thanked them all. “I heard this one was really good!”

Steve had left the wooden spoon inside the pot, and started leafing through the comic. “Sarah from my class told me about it. It only came out last year in spring and it has this new superhero that everyone’s been going mad about.”

Steve opened the issue, smoothing down the first page. Slowly he turned away from the stove and fell into the creaky kitchen chair, starting to read immediately.

“You’re welcome,” Bucky said with a soft roll of his eyes. This perpetual oscillation between disturbing normalcy and oppressing tension was making it hard to see any clarity in his life.

“Thanks, Buck.” Steve flashed him a smile tearing his eyes away from the pictures.

“So I guess the dinner’s gonna cook itself?” Bucky raised his eyebrows. Contrite, Steve frowned at the blue pot with white dots where the cornmeal was bubbling softly, then looked wistfully at the comic in his hands.

“Fine, fine.” Bucky threw his hands up in defeat. It wasn’t like he didn’t know this was gonna happen. “I’ll finish up, you read your pictures.”

Bucky always teased Steve that the only thing he could read were drawings, like a toddler who didn’t yet know the words but could recognize a cow on the page. Steve was never a fan of the written word and that was fine with Bucky. He only wished Steve wouldn’t also be averse to reading recipes, so that he would, for once in his sorry life, cook something that wasn’t blander than the whitest wall. Bucky looked sadly into the pot, dipped in the wooden spoon then licked the cornmeal off it. Fuck’s sake, Steve had even forgotten to salt it.

Bucky took out the two slices of bacon from the fridge as well as half a head of cabbage. He’d be damned if he only ate cornmeal on the first evening in weeks that he didn’t feel like utter shit. Talking to Billy had really helped. At least now Bucky felt like he had a semblance of a plan. It wasn’t much of a plan as far as plans went, but it was more of a plan than he’d had before, so he figured it counted.

_Get your head out of your ass. Remember you’re supposed to be a person, not a sorry blob of atoms. Remember that Steve is your friend, and you are Steve’s. Also, see him for the punk he’s always been._

Bucky glanced back at Steve. His eyes were intent on the drawings, his bangs falling over his forehead like they always did when he was too engrossed to remember to sweep them away. Bucky got back to cooking, his head blissfully empty.

“That song is so overrated,” Steve spoke up when Bucky was sauteeing the cabbage.

“What?” Bucky was jolted out of the familiar, subconscious movements that cooking a simple meal required.

“You’ve been humming that song again,” Steve explained. “ _Over the Rainbow_.”

“I have?” Bucky thought back to a few seconds before. Yeah, he probably had been humming something. “I didn’t notice. Sorry.”

“It’s no bother,” Steve told him, one long finger placed on the last panel he’d read, marking the place. Really, could he stop pretending it was fucking Charles Dickens he was reading? Surely, he could remember which picture he stopped at. It wasn’t like there were sentences spanning ten lines he could get lost in. “I just don’t get what’s so special about it.”

For a second Bucky had to think back to what they’d been talking about. When he did he turned on Steve in disbelief. “ _Steve_. It’s only one of the greatest songs ever performed!”

“It really ain’t.”

Bucky huffed. “You have no taste. I mean: _Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, there's a land that I've heard of once in a lullaby. Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true._ It’s gorgeous!”

“I don’t see it.” Steve shrugged. “It’s only popular ‘cause it was in a famous movie. And I loved the movie, you know I did. ‘S one of my favorites. And the song is _fine_. But everyone’s been obsessed with it and it’s not even that good.”

“How can you _say_ that?” Bucky was completely flabbergasted. Sure, it wasn’t his favorite song in the world, but it was undeniably amazing.

Steve shrugged again. “You’ll see. Everyone will forget about it in a few months when the excitement dies down.”

“This song, and mark my words —” Bucky had at some point started waving the wooden spoon. He hadn’t known he cared so much about the song, but apparently Steve’s casual dismissal fired him up. “— this song will still be sung a hundred years from now.”

“Oh, great! Fabulous, really!” Steve gave him his most annoying sarcastic smile. “Guess I’ll just have to live that long to prove you wrong then. How hard can it be, eh?”

Bucky considered throwing the spoon at Steve’s head but thought better of it and flipped him the finger with his other hand instead.

He went back to stirring the cabbage muttering about _smartasses too smart for their own good_ , but he was smiling. How could he have ever forgotten what a punk Steve was? It was right there, written all over his stupid face.

When they went to bed that night, the silence felt less oppressive than it had the night before. Bucky wondered if it was because he felt more centered. Even though his brain was still a cluster of warring emotions and thoughts, he felt more at peace with himself. Seeing Billy put things into perspective. He realized there was more to the world than his lonely pity party.

Steve had already fallen asleep, but Bucky kept mulling over the wisdom Billy had shared. Looking sideways at Steve he wondered at what point he became so wrapped up in himself that he forgot about his best friend. Steve slept curled in on himself, huddled under a pile of blankets, only half of his face sticking out of it, the hair on the pillow going every which way.

Bucky felt the familiar tenderness at the sight stretch inside him, reaching for every corner of his body. It still terrified him, a deep, aching familiar fear. Instead of fighting it, he embraced it, let himself be afraid, let the battle between the cold and the warmth unravel. Neither won, but the longer he lay there, the looser his limbs became, tension uncoiling until he fell asleep.

The thing about Billy’s advice was that once Bucky let himself be, once he let himself see Steve, he started noticing things he’d never noticed before. No, that was a lie.

He’d always _known_ Steve had a smattering of freckles on his nose and cheeks. He used to tease him about them when they were younger, asking if he’d sprayed gravy on his face. But now, now he noticed Steve had _freckles_. It made him absolutely crazy, knowing that Steve had freckles, before he _knew_ Steve had freckles.

Another thing he’d always known, but had apparently forgotten, was how fucking bitchy Steve was. If Steve were an old lady, he’d be walking down the street grumbling at uncouth youth, swinging his oversized leather purse at every jerk who dared throw an empty cigarette pack onto the street. He bitched about everything. The weather, the noise, the bad street lamp, the dog two floors down, the crack in the fucking tile on the kitchen floor. But his bitching was an honest-to-god comedy show. Instead of making Bucky feel like he was living with a serial complainer, he felt like he was shacked up with all three of the Marx brothers.

“That dog sounds like your father singing while your deaf neighbor accompanies him on a harmonica. Brooklyn’s worst fucking dog. What was God fucking thinking, giving that wheezing son of a bitch a voice?” Then Steve would snort at his own accidental pun, grin at Bucky and say, real pleased with his own wit, “ _Literally_ a son of a bitch.”

Or his eyes would settle on the cracked kitchen tile, narrowing. “What the fuck is up with that tile, Buck?” Bucky would look at the direction of Steve’s pointed finger, and raise his eyebrows in question. “The tile, Bucky. It’s fucking cracked. It wasn’t cracked yesterday. You’d think we have hooves what with how the tiles are cracking faster than popcorn in this damn kitchen.”

When Steve got like this, Bucky always found himself rolling his eyes, laughing. He thought that sometimes Steve only got into his dramatic monologues only to make him laugh, but that didn’t diminish the hilarity of the moment at all. It only added a soft touch to it, when he saw Steve’s eyes soften when Bucky roared louder and louder, the wilder Steve’s metaphors got.

Bucky couldn’t believe he’d forgotten about it, but he had, so when Steve got into a half-serious, half-performative fit over a sour apple, he threw his head back and laughed at Steve’s disgruntled face like he hadn’t laughed in a long while.

Another thing he’d always known was how Steve’s hands moved when he drew. Practiced, sure movements, that could sketch anything in a matter of minutes. What he hadn’t noticed were the tendons moving in Steve’s forearm. Steve’s sleeves were always rolled up when he was drawing, even in winter, even if he was wearing a warm woollen sweater. He rolled up his sleeves so that they didn’t get in the way, showing off his milky arms, the faint outline of a prominent vein on his wrist. From time to time, he lifted his arm and brushed away the hair that had fallen into his eyes. The act sometimes left a smudge of graphite on his forehead. For selfish reasons, Bucky never told him it was there.

Bucky noticed all kinds of things from then on. How Steve’s hands looked too big around his morning cup of coffee. How his lips were more chapped in the winter and how he kept licking them, making them slick with his saliva. How his eyebrows worked up an expressive dance whenever he was thinking real hard. How his shirt stretched across his small chest when he arched his back after hours of drawing.

All in all, Billy’s advice worked. Bucky had started seeing Steve for who he was again. The only problem was that by truly _seeing_ Steve, drops of frightening realization started dripping through his brain like a viscid substance through a dense sieve. Not only did getting his head out of his ass not subdue the desire he felt for Steve, it also made him realize it might have been coming from another place than he thought it had all along.

And he’d fucking _known_ , he’d _known_ , but again he’d known not really _knowing_ and he wasn’t sure he was ready for what that knowledge brought.

Out of the blue, because he had to do something other than stay cooped up in their apartment on a Sunday, thinking his head off, Bucky got up from the bed, padded to the kitchen and leaned on the chair, waiting for Steve to look up from the Friday’s edition of the _World Telegram_. He was wearing an oversized knitted sweater, his hands covered almost to the fingertips — the chill in the room was undeniable.

“I have an idea,” Bucky announced. “Let’s go to the Metropolitan.”

“The Metropolitan?” Steve put down the newspaper.

“Yeah, you know, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Bucky didn’t know why he was explaining that. Of course Steve knew what that was.

“I know what the Metropolitan is,” Steve said, annoyed at being disturbed while reading his oh-so-important news. “But I don’t know how you think we’ll pay for it.”

“I have some savings,” Bucky replied, hoping Steve wouldn’t ask where he got it. The truth was that Mrs. Green started paying him more once she figured he really had read almost all the books in the shop. Her sales almost doubled in the last few months Bucky worked there. Besides being good at reading books, he was also good at reading customers, so he always knew what books to recommend. They always returned after a week, asking for new reading material.

Also, he’d started not-so-subtly flirting back with Louise when her mother was in sight. It pleased them both, and Bucky got a raise, so he figured they were all winners. One just less morally upright than the other two.

“You don’t even care about art.” Steve argued, but Bucky could see the interest in his eyes. He didn’t think Steve had been in the Metropolitan more than twice: once when they were about fifteen and once when Steve went in the first year of his art school.

“I do care. Just not as much as you do.” Bucky cocked his head ‘cause, really, that was borderline insulting. “Besides I love that Egyptian collection they have. I can always go there.”

Steve bit his lip. His eyes shifted between the newspaper and the kitchen window, tempted. The weather outside wasn’t ideal. It looked like it would start snowing again and the edges of the window were completely frozen. It was cold, but not terribly so, and Bucky knew Steve was probably already bored out of his mind being cooped up inside.

“Yeah, okay, let’s go.” Steve nodded, a pleased smile on his face. “Since we stopped going to mass, we can at least do something for the soul, right?”

“I don’t think art and artists really have that kinda reputation.” Bucky waggled his eyebrows. If anything, the fervent churchgoers thought artists were the spawn of the devil. “Remember Mrs. Jones from the church when you told her you were going to art school?” Bucky laughed at the memory. The lady had sighed sadly, cupped Steve’s jaw with her parchment-skin hand, and shook her head sadly.

“What did she say again?” Steve was laughing too. “ _He got you, didn’t he?_ ”

Bucky nodded, his eyes welling with tears as he remembered Steve’s confused expression. “Yeah, and you didn’t know what she was talking about. So you asked _who_? She took your whole face in her hands and shook you like a leaf. _The devil, my son, the devil!_ ”

“She really was something.” Steve shook his head, smiling. He folded the newspaper, put it away, and got up.

They started getting themselves ready, putting on as many layers as they could. Steve didn’t even argue when Bucky threw a hat and scarf at him.

“Ma told me she talked to her the other day. I forgot to tell you. Apparently, Mrs. Jones asked how you were doing. Asked, in the middle of the service, in that stage whisper she always used when she wanted everyone to know what she was talking about. Asked if _that Rogers boy already got corrupted in that school._ Wanted to know what kind of _perversions_ they taught in great detail. As if Ma would know about that. When Ma said she didn’t know, Mrs. Jones went on a rant about how they probably had you drawing naked ladies by now.”

Steve rolled his eyes, wrapping the scarf tightly around his throat. He pulled it up to his cheeks. His voice was muffled slightly when he spoke. “Really, you’d think for someone who looks at naked Jesus every day, she’d be less judgemental. Wish she could see the sacred art they’ve got in Europe. Tits and dicks all over the walls.”

Bucky threw his head back howling at the image of poor Mrs. Jones walking into the Sistine Chapel. Steve had told him about it, even showed him some paintings in a book he’d brought from the school library, and they were definitely something.

They walked to the train station, chatting about Mrs. Jones and other people from the church they hadn’t seen for a long time. Bucky told Steve about the things his ma told him, and Steve shared Becca’s stories from church. Bucky was a bit offended that Becca had told Steve the freshest gossip instead of him, but it was even funnier listening to Steve retell the news, so he didn’t mind.

Slowly they made it to Central Park. They had to walk for a fair few minutes from the station to the museum, but Bucky didn’t mind. There were people milling around despite the cold and the sludge on the streets. As predicted, snow had started falling, but the snowflakes weren’t quite as picturesque as they were when he sat in Billy’s shop looking out the window. They were smaller, falling down quickly, a dense sheet of frozen water.

Once or twice he caught himself smiling at Steve stupidly and had to look away. It felt as if, in this weather, normal life was far away, as if here and now, they lived on another plane of existence where no one could blame him for gazing at Steve’s half-hidden face, with snowflakes melting on the scarf where his lips puffed warm breaths through it.

As expected on a Sunday, the museum was full. Bucky trudged behind Steve for the first hour or so, before Steve mercifully told him to go find something he was actually interested in. Bucky couldn’t deny that he wasn’t in the least bit impressed by the little bronze statues Steve had been admiring for the past thirty minutes. Bucky’d been yawning the whole time they were in that exhibition room, his eyes glazing over on the third statue of a bull.

He wandered off to find the collections from the far away lands. He’d always been intrigued by distant cultures, whether they were ancient or not. He spent a long time looking at exhibits from Egypt, Ancient Rome, and Ancient Greece, marvelling at how people who’d been dead for thousands of years could still touch the hearts of hundreds of people.

After a few hours passed he decided to try and find Steve again. It was an ungrateful task; the museum was enormous. He walked around until he found a section with some paintings. Steve wasn’t there, but the paintings drew Bucky’s attention. They were mostly depictions of landscapes in various seasons.

They were beautiful. Bucky moved from one to the other slowly, soaking up the scenery that, as a city boy, he’d never seen in his life. It wasn’t until he was standing in front of the fifth painting, though, that he found out what it felt like having his breath taken away by a gorgeous art piece.

It was a painting of a lake with snow-capped mountains in the background and a single blooming cherry branch in the forefront. There were tiny houses scattered along the shore of the lake, surrounded by vividly green grass, flowers, and trees blooming in full swing.

The whisper of winter on the mountains in the background, swallowed up by the pure unrestrained _life_ of spring, made his heart clench. The painting was bright, light spilling over it joyfully, balanced out by the shadow of the mountain on the lake surface. The more he looked at it, the more his heart ached, and he stood there struck by the beauty of it, by the _goodness_ of it.

“Darlin’,” a scratchy voice of a heavy smoker interrupted his thoughts. Confused, he turned his head to the small woman in front of him. She was dressed, head to toe, in purple. “You’ve been staring at this painting for fifteen minutes, darling. It’s pretty, sure, but it’s no Manet. You should go down that hall and look at some _real_ art.”

She flicked her eyes at the painting carelessly. Bucky followed her gaze.

“I don’t —” he started, but his throat felt thick and swollen. “You don’t understand —”

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the painting. The way it made his lungs swell with freedom, the way it made him feel like he was soaring.

“You don’t understand —” he tried again, but swallowed his words when the ending of the sentence he wanted to say formed in his mind.

_You don’t understand. This is what Steve’s soul looks like._

If Steve’s soul were a painting, that is exactly what it would look like.

Distantly, he felt the lady pat his arm before she moved on, realizing she wouldn’t be able to get his attention. Bucky’s head was spinning. Steve. Steve who was so fucking _good_ , so fucking _beautiful_ , so fucking _precious_. A real-life painting that no one paid any mind because no one knew how to really look at him. No one knew what that heart contained, how golden his soul was. How everyone, everyone who knew how to really look would fall, irrevocably, irreversibly, in love. Forever. Once you saw the beauty in there, behind the shadows of his grumpy, sarcastic exterior, Steve was a painting straight from the greatest galleries in the world.

How could loving this ever be wrong? Loving someone whose soul was like eternal spring, always blooming and alive, defying winter, and always, always fighting for life. How could loving a soul like that ever be wrong?

“Oh, there you are!” Bucky whipped his head and there he was. Steve. Steve sighed, tired. “Finally. I was looking everywhere for you. Turned the whole museum up and — are you okay?”

Steve halted, searching Bucky’s face. Bucky stared at him dumbly, mouth open, unable to form anything but a silent O.

He loved him. Jesus H. Christ, he _loved_ him. Not even normally. Not like you normally loved people. He loved Steve completely insanely, completely wildly. A once in a lifetime kind of love. There. Always there.

“Buck,” Steve’s voice had a worried tinge to it, his eyebrows one concerned line. He squeezed Bucky’s upper arm, shaking him slightly. “You okay?”

“I —” Bucky swallowed thickly. His heart was hammering in his chest, blood pumping through his veins. “Yeah.” He shook his head. “Yeah, ‘m fine. Just. This picture’s just real beautiful.”

Steve looked at the painting, inconspicuously sitting on the wall. His mouth pressed into a line for a second, before he shrugged. “I guess it’s alright.”

Alright? _Alright?_

Bucky wanted to argue, but Steve pulled him away from the painting towards the hallway. “Come on. We gotta get home. I’m starving. And it’s getting late.”

Bucky didn’t know which train they caught, he didn’t know what time it was when they came home, he didn’t know what they ate. All he knew was that he kept stealing glances at Steve thinking, _I love him, Jesus fuck, I really love him._

It didn’t mean that this knowledge made the fear go away. Perhaps it made him even more afraid. But it also made him powerful in a way he’d never been. As if admitting it to himself gave him back his agency, as if letting himself feel it gave him the possibility to act on it.

He didn’t know how long had passed since they had dinner, nor did he know what time it was when he got up from the table, saying, “I gotta go for a bit.”

“Now?” Steve was frowning. He cocked his head, his expression going from disbelieving to worried. “Buck, you sure you’re alright? Are you getting a cold?”

“Yeah, nah, I’m fine, buddy. Just gotta deal with something.” Bucky clapped Steve on the shoulder on his way to the door where his coat hung on the hooks.

“Where are you going? It’s ten o’clock.” Steve turned on his chair, watching as Bucky bundled himself up again.

“Gina’s,” Bucky told him, donning his hat.

“Right.” Steve’s voice was tight. He looked away.

“I’ll be back soon, promise.” Bucky searched Steve’s face until Steve looked back and nodded. “I just — I gotta tell her somethin’.”

“Really can’t see why it can’t wait till tomorrow.” Steve’s disbelief was back, mixed with a fair share of grumpiness.

“No, it can’t.” He shook his head. “It really can’t.” Bucky felt brave and sure this evening. He couldn’t risk losing the courage by next day.

He walked to Gina’s place, head blissfully empty as his boots crunched on the freshly fallen snow. It had stopped falling sometime in the evening, and a fair portion of it had already turned to brown sludge. Bucky made the effort of walking on the white patches that hadn’t yet been consumed by city grime.

As soon as he knocked on the door of Gina’s apartment and her creepy roommate he’d been so good at avoiding opened the door, all courage left him. He wanted to swivel on his heel and run until he made it to the shore where he could drown himself in the freezing sea. _What the hell will he say? What the hell was he even doing? What if he was wrong? What will — oh my god — what will Gina say? Will she hate him for it?_

Gina’s roommate looked him up and down, her face pinched with what could only be described as disgust. When she was done looking him over, she proceeded to stare directly into his eyes without blinking. She didn’t even turn her head to call for Gina. She shouted directly into his face. “Gina! Your ugly fella’s here!”

Bucky huffed, momentarily forgetting he was worked up for a whole other reason than being called ugly. He swept a curl from his forehead further under the hat. Really, the only experience with ugly this Dead Hooper had was every morning in front of the mirror. _Ugly_. No one’d called him ugly ever since he got rid of the red pimples that marred his _objectively_ handsome face at fifteen.

Bucky couldn’t stay indignant for long. Before long, the roommate disappeared and Gina stood in the doorway, beautiful as ever, her dark hair unfurling over her shoulders. It glinted in the yellow light coming from inside. Bucky’s mouth went dry.

Fuck.

“Hey, honey,” Gina said, reaching up to kiss his cheek. “Didn’t know you’d be coming by this evenin’.”

“Yeah, I —” Bucky swallowed. Gina ushered him in. “I wasn’t planning to. But I need to talk to you.”

He peered deeper into their apartment. He didn’t know why he was surprised that Gina’s roommate was there. It was late after all.

“Listen, I know it’s late and it’s damn cold outside, but could you get your coat and take a walk with me?” Bucky hoped he looked pathetic enough for her to accept his suggestion. Gina opened her mouth to say something, probably ask what was going on, but she shut it. Frowning, she nodded. The tense corners of her mouth told him she was worried.

Once they were outside they didn’t go far. They strolled down the empty street, Gina hanging onto Bucky’s arm. Bucky drew to a stop when they came to a street corner. The Charlie & Sons tobacco shop stood empty and silent behind Gina’s back when she turned to face him. Like in Billy’s shop, there were still Christmas decorations in the shop window. Seeing them twinkle in the faint streetlight made his heart clench. Here and now, he was about to give up the future he’d always imagined. Decorating the Christmas tree with his little kids, while his wife cooked dinner. Maybe there’d be a small dog running around the room, excited because the whole family was home, and because Bucky’s wife always fed him too much on Christmas Eve.

“Bucky,” Gina’s voice was gentle but worried. Bucky had to fight down the sudden urge to flee. “What’s going on?”

He found the strength to look down at her. The worried lines around her lips had tightened further. She must suspect something bad was coming.

“Gina, I —” Bucky fidgeted with the frayed edge of his sleeve. “Fuck. You’re gonna hate me for this. But I gotta tell you. I —”

“Are you dumping me?” Her eyes were sharp, but her mouth had twisted on the final word.

Bucky concentrated on the printed letter S in the shop window. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I, yeah, I’m sorry, Gina.”

Gina inhaled sharply, swaying on her feet. “What?” she asked, voice higher than normal. Bucky wanted to reach out a hand but he wasn’t sure if she’d want him to touch him, especially since he had more truth to spill. “ _Why?_ ”

“I — jeez,” Bucky ran a hand over his face. “I’m in love with someone else.”

“You’re…” Gina started but trailed off, too shocked.

“Gina, me and — me and Steve. I — we —” Bucky breathed in, deeply, and took one final look at her kind eyes, before they were gonna lose all the kindness they ever held toward him forever.

Gina was frozen in front of him. She looked like a colored ice statue, pretty but lifeless. Bucky couldn’t find the words to tell her.

“Gina, I love...” Bucky tried again.

“Oh, god.” Gina finally moved. Her body uncoiling just enough to let her tremble in the wind. She covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, god, you lo —”

“I love him,” Bucky finally found the words he’d been meaning to say, right when Gina found hers. Heavy, pressing silence took over the space between them.

“Christ, Bucky.” Gina shook her head, confused. “Christ. I, god, I’m. _Steve_. God, I should have known. It was right there, god, it was all _right there._ I was so blind.” She ran both of her hands over her face, over her eyes. “God, I was so blind.”

Bucky didn’t really know what she meant. Were they that obvious? Was he that obvious? And maybe he was. And maybe he finally didn’t mind it. He’d write _I love Steve_ on his forehead and wear it there forever if it meant he got a chance with him.

“I’m sorry.” Bucky wanted to take her hands into his, squeeze them gently, take the pain away, but he didn’t think Gina would want to touch him. “I didn’t wanna hurt you, please, you gotta believe me, I didn’t wanna hurt you. I thought if I had someone I liked, like you... I thought it was gonna go away. But it didn’t, it’s — I don’t think it’s ever going away. ”

“I — fuck.” Gina finally dropped her hands from her face. She wasn’t meeting Bucky’s eyes. “I don’t know what to say. So that’s it, is it? Just like that? I thought we were... Thought we had something that could last.”

“I thought that too. It doesn’t help, I know, but I did. I thought that too. But…” Bucky averted his eyes. Gina was fighting down tears. It was too much. He’d hurt them both. “Sorry.” It was so quiet he hoped she even heard him.

Gina nodded, her eyelashes wet, but her cheeks dry. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Bucky felt dumb, standing there not knowing what to say, not knowing if he could touch her, if that would ease the pain at all.

“Did you —” She swallowed visibly. Bucky only now noticed she wasn’t wearing a scarf. She must be so cold. “Did you two… when we were together?”

_Did you cheat on me?_

“No.” Bucky shook his head minutely. “We didn’t. Not after you and I got serious.”

The worst thing was that he knew, at the bottom of his charred black heart, that he would have cheated on her every single night, if Steve as much as ran a finger over Bucky’s wrist. Had he as much as hinted that he wanted Bucky naked. For the first time, he was really glad that Steve’s morals were firmer than his.

“Good.” Gina took in a deep breath, trying to put herself together. Her eyes flitted to Bucky’s face and he met them. They were wet, but there were still no tears rolling down her cheeks. It didn’t make the thick ball of bitterness in his throat go away, but he was glad she wasn’t outright crying. He didn’t think he would be able to contain his own tears if she did. “Does he know?”

Bucky’s heart picked up its pace behind his ribs, the question rising his adrenaline again. “I don’t know. Probably. I — we, we’re not all that good at talking.” He laughed, self-deprecating. “I’m not sure he’ll want me. Want me back.”

‘Cause essentially that was it, wasn’t it? Even though he was never Steve’s officially, in a way he’d always been.

Gina smiled, a single tear finally sliding down her cheek. She raised her hand to cup Bucky’s face. “Of course, he will.”

Bucky heard himself sniff. He closed his eyes to stop himself from dissolving into tears for the second time that week.

“Can I?” He opened his eyes, training them on Gina’s shoulder. “Sorry, I know you’re probably disgusted, but can I — can I hug you?”

“Disgusted?” Gina’s hand had dropped from his face to his shoulder. Confused she asked, “Bucky, what?”

“Just you know… I suppose you wouldn’t want to, anymore...knowing.” He swallowed. “Knowing that I — ‘cause I did you know — touch him like that.”

“Bucky, I’m not disgusted.” Gina’s grip on his shoulder got firmer. “Jesus. Come here.”

She pulled him in, wrapping her arms around him. God he didn’t deserve her, he never deserved her. He buried his face in her hair, breathing her in. She smelled so good, so perfect.

“I’m not disgusted, Bucky,” she whispered into his neck. “I’m just hurt. ‘Cause I liked you, you know, I did. Do.”

“I do too.” Bucky’s voice was muffled from how hard he was squeezing her. “You gotta believe me that.”

He felt her nod against his neck. “I do. I do.” Her voice was thick with emotions. “‘S life, eh? Messy.”

“Right.” He nodded, squeezing her tighter. “Messy.” He pulled back, smiling weakly. “Walk you back?” he offered, even though they hadn’t even left her street. They walked to the door of her building, hand in hand.

“Gina.” Bucky took both of her hands in his. “I know you’re gonna need some time. Me too. But… if you want to come by Mrs. Green’s some time, I’d be real glad to see you.”

She smiled, but it was weak. Sad. “Maybe. Might not be very soon though.”

“Yeah…” Bucky wanted to say more, console her, take the pain away, but he didn’t think anything would help. “Yeah, that’s okay.”

When he turned to head back home, Gina stopped him with a hand on his elbow. She stepped closer. Cupping his cheek again, she kissed him gently, a chaste press of her lips to the corner of his mouth. When she broke away, she brushed her thumb over the spot, smiled another sad smile, and disappeared inside.

Bucky stood on that doorstep for way too long, thinking about how tragic it was that he kept being kissed goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting there! One more chapter to come!
> 
> You can reblog [**this masterpost**](https://synonym-for-life.tumblr.com/post/186452579021/that-moment-divine-e-61k-completed-s-okay) if you like the fic and want to support your friendly neighborhood writer.


	6. Do Come True

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We got there! Bucky and Steve can finally move towards happiness together <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First and foremost, now that this is all about to wrap up, I want to thank my beta [TDcat](https://tdcatsblog.tumblr.com/) who stuck with me through this whole fic, catching my mistakes. This fic would be a lot less readable without her. Thank you TD <3 It's always a pleasure to work with you. 
> 
> Of course, I also want to thank all of YOU, readers, especially those who followed the fic through all my sporadic updates. And - very important! - thank you from the bottom of my heart, for every comment. You gave me ideas, inspiration and motivation! A massive thanks for that.
> 
> There are two songs mentioned in this chapter. One has already been mentioned in the 4th chapter, and that is [All The Things You Are](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhBQd2VMWzA) sung by Helen Forest. And the other one is [The Very Thought of You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bw5h-WPYBQ) sung by Al Bowlly. [**Entire playlist here.**](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH6I_O9zBr5R8ilJ6XKvuTaEiD4bRZg5O)

Bucky walked back home, taking the long route, letting his mind wander. He hoped his head would be emptier when he came home, but a mix of emotions followed him all the way back to the door. A heavy, suffocating weight had rolled off his shoulders after he’d told Gina the truth, but, although he felt lighter than he had all year, a chill pooled in his belly. Regret and apprehension swirled around, more and more thunderous with every step he took.

Regret, he thought, was for Gina. For hurting her. Not for being with her, never for being with her. Perhaps it was selfish, but he was grateful for their moments.

The apprehension, that was all for Steve. All due to the single thought that stood out clear and crisp in his mind like a rare cloudless Brooklyn winter morning. All that was left for him to do was to tell Steve. He had to tell Steve.

_Tell Steve._

By the time he reached the peeling door of their apartment, he’d come up with a hundred different speeches, a thousand different explanations, a million ways to tell him. He’d picked none. Frowning at the door, he pushed the keys into the lock. Curiously, he’d only just now noticed the door was green. He felt like a stranger walking into a new life.

Taking a bracing breath he walked in.

He didn’t know why he expected Steve to stay where he’d left him. It was late. Past midnight. Peeking into the bedroom, he saw Steve was already sleeping under the usual pile of blankets. The longer he stood in the doorway, and the harder he looked at their ugly checkered blankets rising and falling with Steve’s breathing, the more he was sure waking him up and unloading his feelings on him was a terrible idea.

Steve deserved better. Steve deserved something special. He deserved a date, a pleasant night out, a dinner. But how was Bucky supposed to take him on a date? He couldn’t very well take him to the pictures and hold his hand. He couldn’t take him dancing, he couldn’t — it hit him, suddenly and terribly — the knowledge that he’d _had_ all along, but that had never penetrated into his consciousness because he didn’t, not in his wildest fantasies, imagine he’d ever be choosing this; he was choosing to become someone people hated. A life of hiding and danger and secrets. That was what he was choosing and he wasn’t turning back.

And maybe it wouldn’t be that hard. Maybe it would even be okay. It would definitely be worthwhile. Billy and Terrance had a nice life. A pleasant, quiet life. Bucky and Steve could have it too. Might not be easy, but it would be worth it.

Of course, that was supposing that Steve wanted that. He felt a pang in his chest. What if Steve didn’t even want that? What if Bucky was imagining it all? What if Steve wasn’t hurt because he loved him but only annoyed because Bucky had treated him badly? What if he’d misinterpreted it all? What if Steve didn’t want him?

No. No, that wasn’t possible. Steve wore his heart in his eyes and Bucky had long learned how to read them.

But didn’t Steve deserve someone better than him anyway? Was Bucky even good enough for him? He was a bit pathetic. Jumping from job to job, his only pleasure in life dancing, and an occasional cigarette. He wasn’t good like Steve was. He wouldn’t have a single moral bone in his body if it weren’t for Steve.

“Buck?” Steve rolled over peering over the covers. Bucky didn’t know when he’d walked into the room, but he was standing above Steve, like a starstruck robber. Bleary-eyed, Steve mumbled, “You really came back.”

Bucky swallowed. Was this the right time? Should he just say it? Blurt it out? “Mmrghh,” was what came out of his mouth. Steve looked like he didn’t know whether that truly didn’t make sense or if he was too sleepy to hear it right.

“Yeah,” Bucky swallowed, courage obliterated. He needed to do better than this. Steve deserved better. “I said I’d come back.”

Smiling softly, he moved away from the bed to shuck off his clothes. Steve muttered something unintelligible, rolled over again, and was sound asleep in seconds. Bucky doubted he’d even remember it in the morning.

When he slid under the covers, he reached over, pulling the duvet higher over Steve’s shoulders. Steve kept pushing the blankets down even though he always got cold. Bucky didn’t pull his hand away immediately, letting it lie on Steve’s form. Steve didn’t budge. Before Bucky turned on his side, he gently smoothed Steve’s hair away from his forehead.

“Night, Stevie,” he murmured into the darkness, and for the first time in a long while, he slept peacefully through the night.

 

<<>>

 

The next day Bucky almost told Steve at breakfast.

Then he almost told him when he came home from work.

Then he almost told him the next day after work again.

Then the next.

Then he asked him out for dinner, thinking he’d tell him over a nice warm meal. Or after. So they went for a pizza at Antonio’s and all they did was eat and chat about mundane things while Bucky’s confession lay heavy on his tongue.

Then Bucky wanted to tell him when they were walking up the stairs, carrying bags of groceries, then when they got to bed each of them staring at their own patch of the ceiling.

With every failed attempt to spit it out, Bucky became more and more certain that he couldn’t _just say it._ He needed something bigger, a gesture of sorts, something that would _mean_ something. He dismissed roses, he rolled his eyes at the idea of cooking Steve a nice dinner. He couldn’t cook for shit. Yeah, he knew how to prepare the basic stuff. Cabbage and potatoes and cornmeal. But that was hardly impressive. What was he gonna make? Fucking oatmeal? One sunny afternoon he even startled a passerby when a hysterical laugh escaped him at the thought of writing Steve a poem.

So he went round and round in circles, trying to come up with ideas, while want and hope lay trapped in his throat, his conspiring brain hiding the key in the tangled vines of his thoughts.

It was a pleasantly silent night for Brooklyn, when he climbed out onto the fire escape for a cigarette. He didn’t smoke much anymore, but he was getting jitters that night and had to pull away for a quiet head-clearing moment on the rusty iron fire escape. The cold chased him back inside quickly. As he crawled inelegantly back in through the window, Steve’s eyes flicked up from the comic he was reading. It was one of his old ones. Bucky could tell because it was a bit rough around the edges.

“You’ve been home a lot recently,” Steve said. He pretended to continue reading, but Bucky could see he was waiting for an answer.

“Uh…” Bucky ran his hand through his hair. He hadn’t told Steve that he and Gina had broken up. He didn’t know how to tell him anything these days. “Yeah, ‘s ‘cause me and Gina broke up.”

Bucky tried to say it as casually as he could, but even he could hear the uncertainty in his voice. Steve’s eyes froze on the page, his body going rigid. Bucky fidgeted by the window.

“You didn’t tell me.” It was practically a whisper.

“Yeah, I — sorry. I wanted to, but then I…” Bucky waved his arms around lamely, “...forgot.”

Steve closed the comic gingerly, his movements measured. Without looking at Bucky, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, the comic still clutched tightly in his hand. “You forgot.” He had his back to Bucky, but that didn’t prevent Bucky from hearing the scowl in his voice. “You _forgot_.” His voice was getting colder with every word. “I’m your _best friend_.”

“I mean, I didn’t really forget,” Bucky shrugged even though Steve couldn’t see him. “‘Guess I just... didn’t know what to say.”

Steve got up, finally turning to face him. “Gee, I don’t know, Buck. How ‘bout going for ‘Gina gave me the boot. The gal I was thinking of fucking marrying dumped me, Steve, and you’re my best friend and I need you to know it, ‘cause you’re my _best friend_ and this is the kinda shit you tell your BEST FRIEND because he cares for you no matter what’.” Steve ran a hand through his hair, agitated. He let it lie on his neck, rubbing his nape as if trying to calm himself down. “What the fuck, Bucky? Is this really how it’s gonna be now? Us not even being able to be friends anymore?”

“ _I_ dumped her.” Bucky wasn’t able to concentrate on any other part of Steve’s little speech. He thought this was important though. He dumped Gina. Steve had to know that. It was obvious that Steve hadn’t been expecting that. His mouth, which had probably been about to continue tearing into every decision Bucky’d ever made, slammed shut.

“You dumped her,” he finally said in a colorless tone. His eyebrows drew together in confusion. “Why the fuck would you dump her?”

“I —” Bucky was glad Steve cut him off again because he didn’t know what he’d have said if he hadn’t.

“More importantly, why in the goddamn hell didn’t you tell me?”

“Steve, I don’t know, I didn’t mean to not tell —”

“I’m sick of this, Bucky. Of this tiptoeing around, of never knowing what I can say, never knowing what the fuck you’re thinki — ” Steve cut himself off, his eyes widening almost comically. “Oh god.” He stood there, shell-shocked, all color having drained from his face. He looked ashen, struck with a terrible realization. “Oh my god.”

“What?” The anxious knot in Bucky’s stomach got tighter. What was Steve on about now?

“You didn’t tell me — ” Steve stood in front of him, numb, his body perfectly still, except for his mouth. “You didn’t tell me because you thought...did you think — did you think I’d jump at the chance the moment I knew? Did you think I’m that pathetic? That I’d — _force you?_ ”

“What?” Bucky repeated. He didn’t know what the fuck was going on.

“You thought, oh my god, you fucking thought that the moment I knew you dumped her, I’d be on my knees begging to suck your dick. You, you thought I would fucking _beg?_ How fucking pathetic do you think I am?”

“ _What?_ ”

Oh.

Oh, _fuck_ no.

No, no, no, no. Steve was getting this all wrong. All Bucky had been able to think for two whole weeks was how much he fucking loved Steve. All he’d been able to think about was how to fucking _tell_ him that without making Steve hate him even more. All he’d wanted was to make it _right_. Make it _good_ , because he knew no one had ever told Steve that. Dozens of girls had told Bucky, and none of it meant anything to him. He’d wanted it to mean something to Steve and now it was all twisted up and gone straight to fucking hell and Steve wasn’t shutting up, and Bucky wanted to get a fucking word in —

“St —”

“You think I can’t take it? You think I can’t deal with one poor goddamn fact? I know you don’t want me, Bucky, I fucking _got_ that well and clear, you don’t need to be afraid that I’ll fucking molest you or god knows what you’ve been thinking I’d do in that stupid brain of yours.” Steve was getting worked up, his pale face marked with angry, outraged splotches of red.

“Steve —” Bucky worked his mouth, opened and closed it, trying to form a coherent thought, outrage building inside of him too. How dare Steve say that, how dare he think that? Bucky would never — he would never have thought anything that ugly about Steve. Steve was too fucking good, and Bucky loved him so much that his entire body ached with having contained it for so long.

“I’m your fucking _friend_ , Bucky, I don’t need you to fuck me to care about you, you stupid fuck.”

“Steve, please, for fuck’s sake, let me —” Why wasn’t Steve fucking shutting up already, that’s not what Bucky had thought, Steve was taking this all wrong, all Bucky wanted was to make it good and all he did was hurt Steve more, could he not do anything right in his goddamn life, what sort of a fucked up person woul —

“I know you don’t want me, Bucky, I can fucking deal with that, I’m not a small weeping baby who can’t deal with being unwan —”

“Will you shut up, for once, Jesus _fuck_ , I LOVE YOU! GODDAMMIT, STEVE, I LOVE YOU, OKAY.” It burst out of Bucky’s mouth, the emotion that had been bubbling inside him unexpressed for so, so fucking long he didn’t even know how it was _not_ to feel it.

That finally shut Steve up. It didn’t really register in Bucky’s brain though. He couldn’t read Steve’s face past the obvious shock because now he was the one who couldn’t stop the words from streaming out of his mouth.

“I love you, for fuck’s sake, I love you so much I don’t know what to do with it. I broke it off with Gina because I couldn’t — I couldn’t take it anymore. And I thought — I’ve wanted to tell you every single day since then — but then I thought I wanted to do some, some gesture or some shit, something grand, to show you. ‘Cause I’ve been so wrong. And I’m so scared, Steve, I’ve been so fucking scared for so long and I’m finally —” Bucky took a deep breath, pausing only long enough for him to realize his cheeks were flaming hot, and he was talking too loud, and his voice was thick and heavy, and — “Finally, I’m letting myself love you and it turns out I don’t know _how_ ‘cause the way I did before wasn’t right, and, and I can’t do that again.”

He ran a hand through his hair, down his face. Almost as an afterthought, almost as if it was more for him than for Steve, he whispered, “I can’t let myself love you wrong.”

He finished, finally running out of words, a single thought echoing inside his head: _you cracked idiot, you had to go and fucking shout it at him. First time he heard it and you screamed it at him like a caveman._

Steve came into focus. His fingers were crumpling the comic book he was still holding, his knuckles white, not caring that the paper would never recover from their force.

“You love me?” It came out of Steve’s mouth so weak, voice thin, as if he didn’t dare hope he’d heard it right. His eyes were wide and blue, blue, blue, the kind of blue you couldn’t see anywhere but in his irises.

“Yeah.” For the umpteenth time that month, Bucky’s eyes filled with unbidden tears. He swallowed them down on a nod. He had to quit it with all the crying, Jesus Christ. He might be a fairy, but he wasn’t some weeping damsel in distress yet. “I’m not gonna lie, Steve, I tried...I tried not to. But…”

He shrugged uselessly. The blue of Steve’s eyes became overbearing so Bucky withdrew his gaze, settling it on the wooden floorboards. Silence fell over them, awkward and strange and expectant, the kind of silence only love confessions could leave behind.

“Say something, please,” Bucky wasn’t above begging.

Steve drew in a breath through his teeth. “I’m — I’m glad you didn’t succeed. In trying not to.”

“You are?” Bucky had the greatest urge to rub the toe of his shoe over a dark knot in the wood on the floor, but resisted it because he already looked pathetic enough without also looking like a five-year-old child.

“Yeah, Buck,” Steve’s voice was so soft that Bucky finally looked up. His face was open, vulnerable and soft and beautiful. There were tears in his eyes and he wasn’t hiding them. He let them sit there, letting them decide for themselves if they wanted to fall. “Of course.”

“Steve, I know I was…” Bucky ran his hand over his face again, trying to put his thoughts together. “I know I was a right cunt, I know it. And I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. For hurting you, for — for everything.”

Steve looked away, swallowing. “You were. You were, and you did. Hurt me, that is. But —” He took in a heavy breath. “— I do understand it. It’s not quite _standard_ is it? This.” He waved his hand between them. “And it’s not gonna be easy. But when did I ever go for easy, huh?” Steve offered him a small, shy smile.

“So you do want this?” Bucky knew his eyes were pleading. “Me?”

His arms and legs felt so heavy and awkward, as if they were made of lead pipes instead of flesh. What did people do with their hands when they weren’t using them?

Steve smiled again. It was self-deprecating, like Steve always tended to be. “Every day.”

It hit Bucky like a ton of bricks. _Every day._ Ever since they first started orbiting around each other.

“Yeah?” Bucky said, a small hopeful smile curling at his lips.

“Yeah,” Steve nodded, smiling too. He moved from the side of the bed towards Bucky. He stopped far away enough that Bucky couldn’t reach him, but close enough that the distance didn’t feel insurmountable anymore. He shrugged. “I got it bad, Buck. I got it bad for you.”

At these words Bucky’s smile stretched into a full-blown giddy grin. Warmth spread inside him, so strong that he almost looked down at his chest to see if he was glowing. He squelched that silly thought, focusing back on Steve’s words. “You don’t have to have it bad for me, now. You can have it good.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but he sounded sincere when he said, “Sounds swell.”

They stood there smiling at each other, almost close enough to touch, until Bucky sobered. “I don’t know how to do this, Steve. How do we do this? This —” he waved his hands between them, acutely aware that he was echoing Steve’s movements from mere moments ago. How ironic was it that they still didn’t know what to call it? “— this whole thing.”

“You think I know?” Steve shook his head as if the question Bucky was asking was ridiculous. “I don’t know shit, Bucky.” He tilted his head. “I don’t think there’s a rule, you know? How you’re supposed to love. I think you just do.”

“You just do,” Bucky repeated. Steve gave a little shrug as if he didn’t know what to think of it either. Bucky could see one of his collarbones under his shirt, because the shirt was askew, stretching too tight over one shoulder, too loose on the other. The top few buttons were unbuttoned and Steve’s milky throat was exposed. There were three dark moles running down the left side of his neck. Bucky wanted to trace them until Steve got tired of it.

The most compelling, though, was Steve’s mouth. Red and bitten, because Steve never stopped worrying his lips, the lower lip was so plump, so fucking deliciously full that Bucky wanted nothing but to drag his fingers over it again and again and again. Even after Steve got tired of it, even after Bucky’s thumb went numb from it.

“Buck —”

“Can I kiss you?” Bucky stepped closer, drawn in by the rose-colored lips like a bee drawn to a bright flower. He felt the heat in the space between them, the minute trembling of air that someone’s presence produced.

“Yes,” Steve whispered. His eyes were on Bucky’s lips and briefly Bucky wondered if Steve liked his mouth too, if he liked the way it curved at the edges. “Yes, please kiss me,” Steve urged him.

Bucky didn’t, not immediately. He took his time, looking, savoring. He lifted his hand, and just like he’d wanted, pressed his thumb against Steve’s lip. Gently, he ran it from one corner to another, one, two, three times.

“Bucky,” Steve said again.

“Shut up,” Bucky told him, dragging his lip down slightly. He finally leaned in, moved his hand to the side so that it cupped Steve’s face, and pressed his lips against Steve’s. He sighed brokenly into Steve’s mouth. It’s been so long, _god_ , it’s been so long since he kissed him the way he wanted to. Maybe it was the first time ever.

Bucky took his time, lingering, drawing soft responses from Steve. He tipped Steve’s head to the side, opening his mouth up more. Steve was the first to snake out his tongue, making Bucky moan, making his stomach flip three times over. He’d missed this, _holy hell_ , he’d missed this mouth, he’d missed Steve.

Bucky broke apart, only far enough to look at Steve properly. “Such a sweet mouth. Sweetest mouth in Brooklyn.” He ran his thumb over Steve’s kissed-red mouth again, unable to help himself.

The words did something to Steve. His expression changed subtly, but Bucky noticed. Like damn if he wouldn’t notice the way Steve flushed high on his cheeks, a fire waking up in his eyes as his grip on Bucky’s hips tightened. He pulled Bucky back in, crashing their lips together, in a firm kiss. It was hotter this time, wetter, their bodies one single line as Steve leaned up and kissed the daylights out of him until he was swaying so bad he could hardly stand. Bucky took hold of the loose collar of Steve’s shirt to steady himself, but he soon got a better idea. He fumbled with the buttons.

“Off,” he mumbled against Steve’s lips. Steve enthusiastically agreed, bumping his nose into Bucky’s mouth as he nodded.

It took them longer than necessary to shuck their shirts as they alternated between taking off their own and helping each other, sneaking in a grope here and there until they were breathless and laughing. Steve snorted into Bucky’s neck, the sound changing into a gasp, when Bucky palmed at the bulge in his pants. Bucky stroked, more a caress than a firm touch, tracing the outline of Steve’s cock, feeling it fill against his palm.

Steve’s hot breath against his neck, was making Bucky lose his mind. Steve’s hands were exploring his body, one on the juncture of his neck and shoulder, the other running down his back, and his sides. Bucky stole another kiss from him, a deep, bruising one, letting him know how much he fucking wanted him, how much he needed him. Steve was the one who pulled back this time, but he didn’t go far, keeping his forehead pressed to Bucky’s.

“Jesus, Buck,” he moaned, when Bucky ground the heel of his palm harder against Steve’s cock. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“Missed you too, Stevie,” Bucky whispered, running his fingers through Steve’s hair, cupping his head. He shifted, so that he could look at Steve again. The light on the bedside table coated him in a golden yellow light, making the sweat on his upper lip shine. Bucky dragged his nails, or what he had of them, across Steve’s scalp. Steve’s ridiculously long eyelashes fluttered shut on a sigh and once again Bucky was struck by how fucking beautiful he was. The image of the painting from the Metropolitan popped into his mind, serene and alive.

“Steve.” Bucky needed him to open his eyes again, a question burning on his tongue. Steve must have understood Bucky’s silent plea. His eyes opened. They were bluer even than the sky above the mountain lake. “Steve would you —?”

Bucky didn’t know what he was going to ask until the thought formed clear and defined in his mind before he finished the sentence. He would be lying if he said the thought had never crossed his mind, but he’d never really dared entertain it.

“I want you to —” it was harder voicing it than he’d thought. Heat pooled in his stomach, but also in his cheeks, making him flush. “I want you to fuck me.”

Maybe it was weird that he was asking that, when Steve was the smaller one, the daintier one. Maybe people would think it was strange that Bucky, a head taller and at least thirty pounds heavier would want it, but he was tired of thinking about what other people would think. They’d not think anything good about it either way.

Did it matter with queer people? Were there rules about this or something?

“You —” Steve, blinked slowly, surprised. “You want _me_ to — _you?_ ”

“Yeah. I mean, only if you want to?” Bucky now felt ridiculous for asking. Maybe Steve wouldn’t like doing that. And that was fine, Bucky was absolutely game for anything. “If you don’t want to, I can —”

“No,” Steve’s response was hasty. “No, I just. Well, I didn’t think you’d...imagine it like that.”

One of his shoulders gave a small self-deprecating jolt. Steve was thinking along the same lines as Bucky was. But Steve’s small body had never stopped him from doing anything he wanted, so Bucky didn’t know why it should be any different here. Steve’s spirit was greater than even the biggest body could ever contain. And Bucky wanted it, he wanted to feel...to feel Steve take him, wanted the world to fall away as Steve took control.

Bucky traced his knuckles along Steve’s collarbone. It was smooth and pale, bar a few red splotches. He couldn’t quite meet Steve’s eyes. “I wanna feel you.” His dick jumped at the mere thought of letting Steve touch him there, of sliding _inside_ of him. “Everything you wanna give, Steve. I want it.”

Steve caught Bucky’s jaw in his hand, turning him so that he had no option but to look into his eyes. “Yes. Jesus Christ, yes.”

Bucky leaned in closer, emboldened. “You been thinking about that, Stevie?” He ran his thumb under Steve’s ear, where he knew he was sensitive. Steve shivered. “Been rubbing it off on the thought of getting to put it in me?”

Bucky had to run his mouth to keep up his bravado, and the bonus was that it made Steve’s face go all hot, his eyes firing up. It was worth it for that alone. Steve retaliated in the dirtiest way he could. His hand, which had been resting on Bucky’s middle back, slid down, nails scraping on Bucky’s skin, undoubtedly marking their journey with a red line.Steve dragged his hand down tantalizingly slowly, digging his nails into Bucky’s lower back, until they came to rest over his buttcheek. “Matter of fact,” Steve muttered, “I have.”

He slid his fingers along Bucky’s crack, gently this time. Bucky felt a jolt of electricity run down his spine. It felt too real all of a sudden. Real and exciting and heady and definitely something he didn’t want to turn back from. He kissed Steve again, pressing into him, feeling their skin slide together. He grabbed Steve’s hips and pushed his leg between Steve’s until he got some friction. Steve was getting the better deal out of it, being smaller. He pressed his groin into the top of Bucky’s thigh, riding it. He moaned. Bucky swallowed it down. Sweetest sound he’d heard, and he was damned if he wasn’t gonna selfishly take it.

It was getting a bit cold standing, so he walked back, pulling Steve with him, until his legs hit the edge of the bed. They broke apart when Bucky fell onto the bed. He scooted up, mattress creaking softly. Steve followed to hover above him. The way Steve was looking at him made his throat go dry. Bucky licked his lips. Steve’s eyes were a little bit wild, a little bit reckless, and very intense. Steve trailed his fingers down Bucky’s chest, catching his nail on the nipple, just hard enough to make Bucky hiss.

Lowering his head to Bucky’s ear, Steve buried his nose into Bucky’s hair, inhaling. He whispered, voice thick and filled with desire. “If...tell me if it hurts.” He nuzzled Bucky’s hair, breathing him in again, and Bucky’s chest expanded with how much he fucking _felt_ for Steve. His fingers spasmed against Steve’s narrow ribs. “Wanna make you feel good,” Steve said, and Bucky needed him to get the fuck on with it, because his cock hadn’t got any damn attention yet and his slacks were straining, and his heart was too full, and he was reduced to a mess just by Steve’s wet whispers against his sensitive earlobe. How could he have ever thought anyone else could ever make him go crazy like that?

“Please, Steve.” He bucked his hips, to show him exactly how urgent the matter was. “Don’t make me wait, come on.”

Steve sat back on his knees, unbuttoning Bucky’s pants. He dragged them down, and finally there was some friction when his pants slid over his dick. Bucky pushed his hips up, but the fabric was off in a matter of seconds and his cock lay against his hip, nestled, hard and red, in the dark curly hair.

“Fuck.”

At first Bucky thought it was he who said it, but it was Steve. He was looking at him like he was some piece of art, his eyes running from Bucky’s eyes down his body, like he was something beautiful to be looked at. It made Bucky more bashful than he thought it could. He knew he was handsome, but Steve wasn’t looking at him as if he was handsome; he was looking at him as if he was _precious_.

Steve ran his hands up Bucky’s thigh, up to where his leg and hip met. There, he dug his nails into Bucky’s skin, making Bucky twitch.

“Steve, for fuck’s sake, Steve, touch my dick already.” Bucky knew he was whining but the tip of his cock was all wet and Steve hadn’t even touched it yet.

Steve shook his head. “No, not yet.”

Bucky groaned at Steve’s denial, throwing his head back against the pillow. Then he groaned again when he felt Steve’s hands leave him. The bed dipped and Steve shifted, reaching for the drawer by the bedside. Bucky swallowed. He knew what Steve was getting. If his skin were as pale as Steve’s he’d have flushed down to his nipples.

When the bottle of K-Y was in Steve’s hands, Bucky noticed they were shaking. Steve pushed one of Bucky’s legs up, bending it at the knee. His fingers lingered on the underside of Bucky’s thigh. Getting the right idea Bucky spread further, moving the extended farther to the side. Steve bent down, and Bucky thought finally, fucking _finally_ , his dick was gonna get some action. He cursed softly when Steve just mouthed at the hip of the extended leg. He bit, drawing a gasp from Bucky then laved over it with his tongue. Bucky’s eyes had closed under Steve’s ministrations, but they opened when he heard the cap of the K-Y jelly opening, the liquid spurting obscenely onto Steve’s hand. His heart picked up its pace in his chest, hammering a wild, nervous beat.

Steve continued nipping and licking on the sensitive skin around his cock, never touching it. He kept nipping at his hip, licking around his cock, biting at his thigh, but avoided Bucky’s cock until Bucky was practically humping the air as if that would get him any relief. After what felt like hours of torture, Steve reached down, past his balls, fingers cold and wet. “Is this — you sure, Bucky?”

Bucky nodded. He hoped Steve saw it because he wasn’t sure he would be able to form words. The pad of Steve’s thumb pressed against his opening and the only thing Bucky could think at first was _thank god I washed well down there._ Soon, he wasn’t able to think about it anymore, though, because Steve’s finger rubbed him firmer, still not breaching, only massaging, pressing around and _on_ and, holy _fuck_ , Bucky didn’t know there were so many nerve endings there. He buried his head into the pillow, breathing hard. The pillow smelled of mold and dust and their cheap Octagon soap that they used to wash their clothes. It also smelled of Steve. That smell made Bucky bury his head further into the pillow.

He heard Steve squirt more jelly onto his fingers. When he touched Bucky’s pucker again, the cold made him shiver.

“Sorry, sorry,” Steve apologized, his voice too full of wonder to be able to convey his regret. Bucky wanted to chastise him about how he didn’t sound sorry at all, but the words died in his throat when a finger was pressed inside, and, _god_ , god, oh, god, oh god. Steve’s finger was _inside_ him. Steve’s finger was inside him. And it felt good. Felt just as good as when Gina did it except that this was better, this was better, for one single reason, and that was that it was _Steve_ doing it.

Steve took his time, sliding his finger in slowly. Bucky’s breaths were coming hard. His dick was still painfully hard, but he forgot about it momentarily because suddenly there was another finger pressing in, and, shit, but it felt bigger than two fingers should feel. It didn’t go in as smoothly. Bucky had never taken two. The stretch felt impossible, and Bucky panicked, clamping down hard, his muscles contracting involuntarily. He hissed in pain.

“Shit, shit, fuck.” Steve froze, his voice panicked too. “Sorry. Shit. What did I do wrong?”

Bucky took in a deep breath, he tried to push it through his body, to force himself to relax. “No it’s…” he looked past Steve’s shoulder, averting his eyes. “I’m just...I’m nervous.”

“Oh.” Steve licked his lips. They looked dry. He reached up with his free hand faltering before he placed it on Bucky’s side. “I’m nervous too.”

“Yeah?” Bucky hated that he sounded hopeful. It made it easier if Steve was nervous too. Bucky felt less like a little virgin girl like that.

“Yeah, ‘course,” Steve reassured, and Bucky heard how shaky his voice was. “You wanna stop?”

“No, no.” Bucky shook his head. “Maybe just, maybe just kiss me.”

Steve’s smile looked unsure, Not in a bad way; more like he was trying hard not to let all of his emotions spill. He leaned forward, capturing Bucky’s mouth with his own. Bucky reached up for him, pulling him in as Steve pressed him further into the mattress. They kissed for a while until Bucky felt Steve’s fingers working in and out of him again, small thrusts loosening him up. When Steve curled his fingers, a shot of hot electricity flew up Bucky’s spine. He gripped Steve’s shoulder.

“Alright?” Steve muttered into his mouth.

“Yeah. Yeah, alright.” Bucky breathed. “That felt good.”

Steve pulled back, his hair a mess. Bucky held his face in hands, marveling. He ran his thumb over the faint freckles over Steve’s nose, tracing them. They’ll be more pronounced in the summer. Shy, Steve, broke away. He leaned down, nipping at Bucky’s stomach, kissing it. He shot him a nervous smile as if asking _is that okay?_ Bucky didn’t think he’d ever be able to deny Steve anything if he looked at him like that. Steve moved lower.

Bucky’s cock, which had lost some of its hardness in his moment of panic, was filling up again. Steve licked the underside of it. It twitched against his tongue. Bucky arched, needing more, but that was all Steve afforded him before he moved on to kiss the top of his hip bone.

“Steve,” Bucky whined, “Steve please.”

“Shh,” Steve whispered into the tender spot and Bucky decided that Steve was a goddamn sadist. Except that he couldn’t really be one because he was being so gentle, he was being so fucking tender that Bucky was trembling from it. His Steve, his spitfire friend, wild and always ready for a fight, opening him up with his fingers, a slow gentle slide, going deep, making Bucky lose his mind. His Steve tearing his heart apart with his soft hands.

Steve spread Bucky’s legs further apart, holding both of his legs up. He kissed Bucky’s inner thigh. The dark hair must have been tickling his lips, but Steve didn’t care. He kissed Bucky again and again, the gentlest press of his lips, and Bucky almost cried.

“Jesus, Stevie,” Bucky said. It sounded wet even to his own ears, a whisper drenched with emotions.

Steve picked up the pace, his fingers sliding in and out of Bucky easily now. Almost every press of them had the knot of heat in Bucky’s groin expanding. “You ready?” Steve asked when Bucky was practically thrashing in bed. “Please say yes, cause I’m gonna come in my pants otherwise.”

“You still have your goddamn pants on?” Bucky grumbled through a gasp. Steve pulled his fingers out slowly. Bucky grunted again at the loss.

“Yeah, well I’ve been rather busy,” Steve said because he always had to be smart about everything.

“Well get busy getting them off,” Bucky urged him, but he didn’t have to; Steve’s pants were past his knees before he finished the sentence. Steve took off his underwear next and Bucky noticed his cock wasn’t the only one that had been crying from neglect.

Bucky didn’t have time to admire. Steve took his cock in his hand, slicking it up, and then he was back, between Bucky’s legs, touching him. He pressed both of his legs back again, the slick hand creating a weird sensation as it slid on the hair under Bucky’s knee. Bucky helped as much as he could, but he wasn’t really able to think about what he was doing because he felt Steve’s cock touch his balls. In a moment of hesitation Steve’s searching eyes found his. On Bucky’s nod, he leaned one of his legs on his shoulder, took his cock in his hand, directing it to Bucky’s opening. After a breath-shaking moment, Steve pressed inside, his eyes bearing into Bucky’s. When the tip of his cock finally breached Bucky, he bit his lip on a sigh.

It burned. Bucky was well stretched but some of the nervousness was back. It wasn’t quite so frightening anymore, though, because Steve’s lips crashed into his, and Bucky opened up for him, taking him in, his cock, his tongue, his all. It took Steve a few shallow thrusts before he was fully sheathed inside Bucky.

Distantly, Bucky wondered if they should have used a rubber. He knew you could transmit some nasty stuff even like this, but Steve hadn’t been with anyone since they were teenagers, and Bucky always used a rubber with everyone else. He was going to have to ask Billy, embarrassing as that might be.

Maybe they should have been more careful, but that had never been their forte. Besides Bucky couldn’t think anymore, couldn’t do anything but grab Steve’s upper arm, when he was finally pressed as deep inside as he could go.

“Fuck.” Steve moaned, burying his head into Bucky’s neck, breathing hard. Bucky would worry Steve was having an asthma attack what with how he gulped at the air, but Bucky could tell the asthmatic wheezes apart from the normal ones better than he could tell his mother’s voice from Becca’s. Still, just as he did when Steve’s bad lungs acted up, he rubbed his back, thumbing at the faint knobs of his spine, feeling Steve’s chest expand against his palm.

“You doing okay, Buck?” Steve asked, his hips rolling minutely. “‘Cause I gotta move, please, jeez, I need to move.”

“Yeah, baby, you can move,” Bucky said into Steve’s ear. Steve did and Bucky’s hands spasmed on his back.

“Shit,” Steve panted. He drew back slowly, not all the way, then pushed back. “You feel so good.”

Steve didn’t have a big dick, but Bucky sure had never taken anything that big into his ass. It still burned a little. Even after a few thrusts, he felt his rim stretch every time Steve pulled out. After a while though, Steve shifted and hit that magical spot inside him, lighting Bucky up from the inside. He whined and dug his nails into Steve’s hip, his shoulder.

Steve was looking at him, and Bucky reached up to press his thumb into the lips forming a permanent O. He was so beautiful and _shit_ he was hitting that spot with every thrust now, changing the angle when he saw what made Bucky react. Bucky slipped his thumb into Steve’s mouth, and fine, he’d admit, maybe he had a bit of a thing for Steve’s mouth, but anyone who didn’t was mad as a hatter because that was a mouth angels and devils alike sang about.

“Steve, fuck,” Bucky moaned when Steve licked his finger like that time before they first kissed, Bucky drunk off his ass, but not drunk enough to forget that. “You feel good, too, sweetheart, feel so good.”

Bucky didn’t know what it was that made those sweet words spill out whenever he had his eyes on Steve’s mouth, but they spilled, falling from his lips so naturally and so freely that he didn’t know if he could stop them if he tried.

Steve laughed a bit, Bucky’s finger slipping out of his mouth. “Shoulda been me sweet talking to you right now.”

“You like it Stevie, when I talk to you like that?” Bucky pulled him in to breathe against his cheek. He licked it, letting his hot breath fan against Steve’s feverish skin. He moved on to Steve’s earlobe, breathing hot and hard against it, before he licked the shell. Steve’s breath hitched, and his hips thrust into Bucky harder.

He moaned into Bucky’s shoulder, pressing Bucky further into the mattress, and his legs farther into his body, so that Steve’s balls slapped against Bucky’s ass when he fucked into him. Bucky moaned, whether at the sinful sound or at the way he felt Steve’s cock so fucking deep inside him, he didn’t know.

“You didn’t tell me,” Bucky panted, because he was damned if he wasn’t gonna make Steve lose control some more. “Tell me, baby. You like it when I call you that?”

Bucky whispered it right into the sensitive spot under Steve’s ear, making Steve shudder. His thrusts became more erratic. “Yes, jeez, Buck,” he ground out, “I do, I do, I like it, fuck, goddammit, I like it so mu — _oh._ ” He drove his hips into Bucky hard one more time, the gasp at the end of his sentence turning wondrous and quiet, as if he was taken by surprise.

Then he was coming, spilling inside Bucky, his whole body trembling from the force of his unexpected orgasm.

He fell onto Bucky, a welcome weight, not only because it was Steve, but also because Bucky’s cock was finally, finally deliciously trapped. Bucky couldn’t stop himself from rolling his hips, not even caring about the ungainly squelch that his hole made when Steve’s cock slipped out.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Steve said, trying to get up, but his arms were trembling too hard to hold himself up. “I didn’t mean to come so fast. Sorry, I just, took me by surprise.”

“‘S ‘cause you like me talkin’ sweet to you so much.” Bucky wanted to give him a cheeky smile, but he didn’t think it worked because he was so fucking hard his dick was literally hurting. He shifted Steve a bit, trying to get his hand between them so that he could finally jerk his cock off and fucking _come_.

“No.” Steve slurred, attempting to bat his hand away. He was still gone from his orgasm.

“It’s okay, Steve, I don’t mind that you shot first. But I need to —” Bucky had finally taken hold of his cock and, oh, what a sweet, sweet relief that was, “ _fuck_ — I really need to come.”

“No.” Steve took hold of his wrist wrangling Bucky’s hand away from his cock, and Jesus fucking Christ no wonder Steve got punched so much. In that moment Bucky was in half a mind to do it himself. “Lemme.”

Steve pulled himself up, finally getting back some of his strength. For once without stalling he slithered down Bucky’s body, and without teasing took his cock into his mouth. Bucky whined because Steve’s mouth was so hot and so smooth and so fucking _pretty_ stretched around him like that. He couldn’t stop himself from thrusting, his hips taking on a mind of their own. Steve choked slightly, but that didn’t deter him from sliding down on Bucky again taking in as much as he could.

Bucky was fisting the covers so hard he was afraid he would rip them three times over before Steve was done with him, but then Steve shoved his legs further open, and Bucky couldn’t give a damn for the covers if he tried.

If Bucky had ever insulted Steve’s intelligence, which he surely did on the daily, he wanted to take every remark back because Steve’s fingers, in a stroke of genius, slid past his balls and pressed against his hole. Bucky whined, not caring if the whole fucking building heard him. There was Steve’s come dripping out of him, he could _feel_ it, and Steve was pushing his fingers into his ass slicked with it, and Bucky thought he was going to cry for real then. Steve’s mouth wasn’t doing any work anymore, he just held it loose and let Bucky thrust in it, just far enough so that he couldn’t hit the back of Steve’s throat.

Steve had two fingers inside him, but Bucky was loose. He felt so open, so fucking _ruined_ , and Steve kept pressing in, fingers curled up, hitting, not even thrusting, just rubbing against that knot of nerves over and over again and Bucky was so sensitive he didn’t know whether he wanted to fuck himself back on them or jerk away. His eyes were open, or so he thought, but he couldn’t see anything, his vision was a smattering of blurry stars, his head swimming because there was pleasure everywhere, pleasure outside and inside and all around him and then the pleasure was spreading, shooting up from somewhere in his ass through his dick, up his spine and everything went black from the orgasm that ripped through him.

Distantly he could hear Steve spluttering because he still hadn’t goddamn learned that he couldn’t swallow for shit, but Bucky couldn’t even spare a single funny thought for it because he felt so good it hurt and Steve’s mouth was still on him and his fingers still working him until, surely, his balls had gone dry as a desert.

It felt so good and then it all felt too much, too much, too much. He squirmed away, sensations overloading. Steve got the idea. He took his mouth off Bucky’s softening cock and pulled his fingers out as gently as he could. Bucky still flinched.

Bucky had thrown an arm over his face sometime during his orgasm. He pressed his eyes into the crook of his elbow even more firmly, not ready to face the world yet, feeling altogether too vulnerable, too soft, too destroyed. His hair was plastered to his head, there was sweat running down his neck, and the gasps coming out of his throat were still far too raw.

Steve touched his jaw, dragging his knuckles over the faint stubble there.

“Hey there, pal,” Steve said and the softness in his voice broke Bucky all over again. He wanted to reply, but when he opened his mouth only an indecipherable gurgle came out. Steve laughed, leaning down to kiss his chin. The bed dipped and Steve moved away. Bucky protested, still without actually forming words.

“Be right back,” Steve assured him with a pat to his hip.

Steve held his promise and was back in a few instants, the bed shifting under Bucky again. Steve laid one hesitant hand on Bucky’s thigh. When Bucky didn’t even react he pushed it up. “Bucky,” Steve sounded awkward and unsure. “I’m gonna clean you up okay?”

Bucky’s eyes shot open, but since he was still hiding his face under his arm, he only saw a thin strip of yellow light. He felt a wet cloth rubbing his thigh, slipping lower, hesitant, but not stopping. Steve dipped between his ass cheeks sponging him up, wiping away the come and the sweat. Somehow that simple action felt more intimate than anything they’d ever done. Bucky didn’t know how to react. He couldn’t show his face, that was sure. He was too afraid of what was on it. Did it show how his heart was melting beyond repair?

Steve gently wiped him, careful when Bucky winced as it became too much again. _His Stevie,_ Brooklyn’s most irritable fist, taking care of him like that. It made his eyes sting and his chest constrict an awful something. When Steve’s hand stopped moving, Bucky took him by his wrist and pulled him up so that he fell against his chest. Steve’s face pressed into the crook of his neck. It was only when Bucky was sure he wasn’t going to look up that he finally felt it safe to move his arm away from his face. He used it to pull Steve closer, petting at his sweaty hair.

“Jesus, Steve.” Bucky knew Steve could hear the tears in his voice. Steve laughed softly.

“That good, huh?” Steve asked, cheeky. He swiped his tongue over Bucky’s collarbone. It probably tasted as salty as the sea.

“The best.” Bucky ran his hand over Steve’s damp back, pressing his fingertips lightly over his ribs, before he squeezed him tight against him. Swallowing down the thickness in his throat, he said lightly, “Don’t think I was too far gone to notice you still can’t swallow for shit, though.”

Steve smacked Bucky’s stomach, drawing out a hollow _oof!_ from him. “You have no grounds to complain after I quite literally blew your brains out.”

“Not complaining, _baby_ ,” Bucky whispered, drawing out the word ‘baby’. He felt Steve’s Adam’s apple work against his throat. Bucky snickered. “You really like that.”

Steve smiled against his chest. “I do. I do like that.” He rose his head, his cheeks still red from previous exertion. He placed his mouth on Bucky’s chin, dragging it along his jaw, until he reached his ear. “Next time, I’ll be testing how it works on you, _doll_.”

Steve’s excessively husky voice should have made it funny, but by the way Bucky’s finger twitched against his neck and the way his next breath came out ragged, it was pretty clear how that experiment would turn out. Steve laughed into his cheek. Bucky could practically feel the happiness radiating off of him, reaching inside of Bucky only to discover that he, too, was vibrating with the same frequency.

Lying there, Steve’s chest rising and falling slowly under his hands, a single line from Bucky’s favorite song kept playing in his head.

_Some day my happy arms will hold you, and some day I'll know that moment divine when all the things you are, are mine._

 

It was that day and the moment was most divine.

 

 

 

* * *

 

_Epilogue_

 

**Four months later**

 

Bucky was at work arranging the shelves. He had figured out a new sorting system that would make it easier for customers to find what they wanted. Mrs. Green had approved his plans, so all he had left to do was sort the books into the right shelves.

It was lunch hour when he started because morning had been busy. Only a handful of customers had come, but they were a demanding bunch so he hadn’t had time to even think about sorting.

Two ladies had come asking about some specific book that Bucky knew they didn’t have. The ladies insisted he “go look in the back” as if that would make the book magically appear like a rabbit out of a magician’s hat. After them came a man who fancied himself a philosopher. He didn’t even buy anything. All he did was unload his thoughts on the meaning of life onto Bucky. There was a point when Bucky was on the verge of asking his Plato ass to fuck out, but he always tried to be kind to customers, so he nodded, imagining how good it would feel to whack him on the head with the fattest book in the store.

This was how he ended up working during his lunch hour. He wanted to crack into the biggest shelf so that he wouldn’t have too much work to do the next day. He wasn’t particularly hungry anyway, and he was sure he’d be able to pop out later to get a burger or a hot dog. While working, he hummed along with the song on the radio. Whenever Bucky was working, the small radio on the desk was always on. It was easier to work with nice songs playing in the background. He’d been trying to convince Mrs. Green to buy a record player, but she wasn’t too keen on the idea. Bucky would buy it from Billy. Billy had even promised Bucky a discount should he manage to convince Mrs. Green, but she wasn’t budging yet.

The song that was on always reminded him of Steve. He’d never told him because Steve thought he was awfully sappy as it was, but it never failed to make Bucky smile when Al Bowlly sung the lyrics.

_The very thought of you and I forget to do the little ordinary things that everyone ought to do._

And wasn’t that true. That morning Bucky had forgotten to put on his underpants when he got dressed. He only remembered on the staircase when the itching of his woolen trousers became quite noticeable indeed. He rushed back, and quickly redressed, Steve laughing in the background.

_I'm living in a kind of daydream, I'm happy as a king and foolish though it may seem to me that's everything._

Bucky did actually feel as if he were living in a daydream. His life hadn’t changed much, not really. But it had also changed in the most monumental way. He had Steve now.

The doorbell rang and Bucky looked up from the book he was leafing through, trying to determine whether it belonged in the science fiction or the fantasy section. He hadn’t read that one so he didn’t know. He turned towards the door to greet the customer.

“Speak of the devil and he doth appear!” Bucky greeted because it was Steve standing in the doorway. Steve threw him a quick grin, closing the door behind him. It was pouring outside. Bucky hadn’t even noticed.

“Who’ve you been speaking to?” Steve looked around, pretending he was searching for a person. “You do know talking to yourself is the first sign of madness.”

“Fine,” Bucky said rolling his eyes. “ _Think_ of the devil and he doth appear.”

Steve snorted but he looked pleased that Bucky had been thinking about him. As if that was something special. Bucky was always thinking about Steve.

Steve held out a paper bag. “Brought you a hamburger from Louisiana’s Best. Bet you hadn’t gone out for lunch.”

Bucky shrugged, guilty. He took the bag gratefully, peering in. Setting the book he was still holding onto the shelf, he went to set the chairs so that Steve and him could both sit down. “I wasn’t really hungry?” he offered as a way of explanation.

“Sure thing. Totally not hungry.” Steve raised his eyebrows at the way Bucky bit into the savory burger. “I don’t know why I let you rag on me about not eating when you’re just as bad about it.”

“Mmm not t’one wh’s skinny,” Bucky mumbled around a bite. Steve knocked their knees together. They were sitting close enough to touch but not close enough to be suspicious. Bucky knocked his knee back.

“I ate mine on the way,” Steve explained. “Was too hungry, couldn’t wait.”

Bucky noticed Steve’s coat was splattered with rain drops, but his hair wasn’t too wet. It must have started raining hard only after he stepped inside. Bucky reached over with the hand not clutching the sandwich, and brushed a few drops from the wide collar of Steve’s coat. He made sure to briefly run his fingers over Steve’s neck too. Steve shivered, his eyes darkening.

“Buckyyyyyyy!”

Bucky snatched his hand away, whipping his head in the direction of the always-dreaded voice. He only had a chance to give a small groan before Ugly Louise was in sight smiling as lewdly as ever. It might be so that Bucky had started flirting back with her when her mother was near because he liked getting paid well and Louise never really dared make an open come on with Mrs. Green there. When her mother wasn’t there, though, Louise was as dangerous as ever.

Louise was leaning on the door jamb leading into the back storage. With a set of stairs, the storage was connected to the Greens’ apartment upstairs where Louise must have come from.

“I was thinking, James Buchanan Barnes —” she fluttered her eyelashes and pursed her lips, “— that we could do something fun since my mother isn’t home.”

She ignored Steve’s presence completely. Perhaps that was for the best because Steve was trying hard to contain his laughter. “Uhh,” Bucky said, casting his eyes wildly around for an excuse. “I’m, umm, eating lunch.”

Louise narrowed her eyes. Bucky felt like prey. She started stalking towards him slowly, stepping over boxes of unsorted books in what she surely thought were elegant movements, when she really looked like a stork imitating a parade horse.

“Listen, Louise,” Bucky threw a pleading look at Steve but his eyes were everywhere but on Bucky’s face. He must have been intentionally avoiding meeting his eyes lest he start laughing out loud. “I’ve told you already, I’m not interested. In fact, I’m already taken.”

Louise came to a stop in front of him. She cocked her hip, throwing him a disapproving look. “Don’t lie to me, Bucky bear.” This made Steve choke on his saliva. Oh, Bucky will be hearing this nickname for at least a week now. “I’ve heard you and Gina broke it off.”

“Yes, well...” Bucky rubbed the back of his neck. “I got someone new now.”

Louise’s eyes narrowed further and Steve finally stopped looking like a pufferfish. His shoulders were still shaking but his gaze was finally directed at Bucky. Bucky recognized fondness in his eyes.

“Oh, yeah?” Louise took another step towards him, reaching out with her arm. “Like who?”

Seeing her wild pink nails on her ring-adorned fingers moving closer and closer to his tie, Bucky panicked. He reached out to his side, pulling Steve against him by his shoulder, crushing him against his chest.

“Steve,” he told her hastily, wondering just what the fuck he was thinking. “I’m with Steve now. He’s my fella.”

_What what what what what_

“ _What?_ ” Steve squeaked by his side, body rigid and eyes wild. He was looking from Bucky to Louise, obviously deciding what the best thing to do was. “Uhh,” he finally decided, softening his stance, “Yes, that’s right. Bucky’s taken. By me.”

He looked at Bucky, _what the fuck are we doing_ written all over his face. If the situation weren’t quite as terrifying, Bucky would have made a joke about being taken by Steve on the regular. Throw in the fact that taking was done in all and every possible way. As it were, he merely waited for Louise to react, his heart pounding in his chest. Was this it? Would everyone find out now? Would Bucky lose his job?

Louise frowned between them, lips pursing again. Then she laughed. “Oh, Bucky, you’re a funny one!” She smoothed her hand down his chest under the pretense of fixing his tie.

Bucky exhaled, feeling Steve relax beside him as well. It was better not being taken seriously, rather than have the news spread, damaging both his and Steve’s reputation. Bucky unhooked his arm from Steve’s neck, letting him go.

“You are veeeery handsome, Bucky boy,” Louise purred. Bucky stepped back when she reached for him again. He tripped over the chair behind him, righting himself before he fell on his ass.

His heart had still not calmed down completely from his panicked confession, but his mind was finally working again. An idea popped into his head.

“Hey, hey, Louise,” he told her, grabbing her hand before it was able to reach his collar. “You know what, funny thing, Steve here, had been telling me how pretty he thinks you are.”

Steve’s head swiveled in his direction slowly, a murderous expression on his face.

“I know you’re not sweet on him, Louise, but he’s a great fella, and he’s been absolutely mad for you. Been telling me how his heart _aches_ for you, for ages.”

“Have not!” Steve protested but Bucky continued with enthusiasm when he saw Louise’s thoughtful expression.

“He has, he’s just shy. He’s been jealous too, ‘cause you keep being sweet on me.” Steve was glaring daggers at him. Bucky was afraid he was gonna get punched so he stepped sideways putting some more space between them. “He even writes _poems_ about you.”

“Wha —” Steve spluttered, fully rounding on Bucky. Then, when he saw Louise’s expression turning more and more interested, he waved his hands. “I don’t — I don’t even know how to read!”

“The poems are in pictures,” Bucky explained as if it were an obvious thing.

“Really?” Steve threw his hands up in the air, grumbling into his chin, “In pictures, in _pictures_.”

Louise, who had kept her eyes on Bucky all this time, tilted her head. Slowly and without blinking, she shifted her gaze to Steve, looking him over with curiosity. Her eyebrows rose and kept rising, perfectly accompanying the wicked glint in her eyes. Then she smiled. A terrible slanted smile of a hunter who’d just found a new target.

Steve cursed, scrambling for the door, and Bucky threw his head back and laughed. Oh, the sweet, sweet revenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, you wonderful peep! (this is the singular form of peeps from now on). This writer loves comments so feel free to asdfghjk with me as I've been asdfghjk-ing a lot over this fic these past few months. It'll be much appreciated :)
> 
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